Journalistic Writing: Building the Skills, Honing the Craft

I don't want to be harsh, but the author's writing skills are shaky at best. Don't believe me? Here's a sentence from the first paragraph of the preface:"I'm voting for the accepted journalistic style to revert to what is today's lowest common denominator of journalistic writing as elucidated in The Associated Press Stylebook."Never mind that the sentence rambles and has odd phrasing ("lowest common denominator of journalistic writing"?). How can a style revert to something it's never been before? How can it revert to "today's" style, a style that's already here? Where does the AP guide "elucidate" (promote?) a bad writing style? My AP guide doesn't, assuming the author refers to style in the general sense, which he apparently does.Still not convinced? Here's a passage from the first chapter, first page:"By taking the time to craft an introduction, or "lede," you're saving time. (Many journalists intentionally misspell "lead" to distinguish it from a police clue or graphite). Note that verb: craft. This is precisely what you must do."Huh? What's a graphite? Perhaps the author means the mineral used to make pencil lead--why not say so? Next he tells us to "note that verb." What verb--the one he introduced 22 words ago? Most readers will have forgotten it. And following "note that verb" with a colon and "craft" doesn't help much. Colons introduce new info, while "note that verb" clearly points to a verb presented earlier. Then he says we must precisely "do" something. Do what? "Note that verb" or "craft"? (The author means "craft an introduction" but since "introduction" was presented so far back, we've forgotten it too.)You get the idea. Do you really want writing advice from this guy?

Journalistic Writing should be required reading for aspiring journalists. Bob Knight touches all the bases--newspapers, magazines, radio TV and the Internet. Not only is Knight's book the ideal basic training manual, it's also an invaluable resource for those who have been working in the field as reporters, writers and editors.If I were the editor of a newspaper I'd make it mandatory that all of my fellow editors and all of my writers and copyreaders spent one hour every month dwelling on one of the chapters. That would entail having sessions a couple of times a week and maybe some makeup sessions for those on vacation or out of town during a given month. But this "advanced placement refresher course" would certainly be worth the investment in hours.Neil MilbertChicago Tribune Sportswriter 1968 - 2010

I'm not a journalist by trade, but I admire the journalistic approach to writing. It's about cutting out the fluff and getting to the point. Anyone who writes can benefit from Robert M. Knight's book. Mr. Knight writes with an authoritative and sometimes humorous voice. The section on usage is a gold mine of clarity. As an added bonus, you get a section on the evolution of English. This book has now become one of my go-to references. I highly recommend it.

I haven’t finished reading it but so far it’s great book and I am happy I added this book to my collection

Started out good, but got more difficult to read with each turn of page. I definitely learned something however. Author gives a good method for setting up a story and how to add in the components.

I'm reading this book in my Journalism class and it's pretty good. It is written clearly with some nice writing exercises.The only issue I have is that I acquired it on Kindle maybe a month ago, and now it isn't available in the Kindle Store anymore :(. I still have it on Kindle, but a classmate of mine has been looking for it and now he cannot get it on his.What happened? Bring the Kindle version back, please!!

The book came quickly and arrived in perfect condition. Many thanks!

The only downside is that the book has exercises, but doesn't give recommendations. I did find it to be a useful tool.bc

My brother love this book

Narrow focus on traditional news reporting (surely journalistic writing is about more than just news reporting). Contains a lot of padding (unrealistic-sounding examples, comic errors, etc.). Highly prescriptive.

One of the best and clearest books I've read on the subject. It helped me a lot.