Nice going Victor.
It shows how much control the media have over what the public reads, sees
and hears.
It's not surprising. My experience has shown that newspaper editors and
writers are opposed to the metric system regardless of its ease of use, its use
in science and technology, and its use internationally.
Keep up the good work!
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Victor Jockin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 1:24 AM
Subject: [USMA:41351] Re: Journalism & AP Guidelines
With respect to journalistic style guidelines, I e-mailed Kenneth Chang of
the New York Time regarding an article he wrote covering NASA's current Mercury
probe mission. A very nice piece, but full of references to miles, even though
an accompanying NASA photo showed notations in kilometers. I was pleased to
get a prompt reply, which made clear that Ken, perhaps not surprisingly for a
science writer, is as much an advocate of the metric system as any of us. But
his employer sets style guidelines on this issue that are similar to AP's,
portions of which Ken quotes in his response below.
To reiterate, it seems to me that we should start building a list of
signatories in science, education, journalism, etc., to protest guidelines in
journalistic style manuals mandating the use of traditional US measurement
units. Perhaps, eventually, Mr. Chang could be a weighty addition to that list.
From: Victor Jockin
To: Kenneth Chang
Date: July 7, 2008
Thanks for your excellent article about NASA's mission to Mercury.
Outstanding science reporting is one reason I'm loyal to the Times.
Consistent with practice across nearly all fields of science, NASA has
principally used metric units of measure for many years. I believe the last
vestiges of traditional units are being phased out now, with the upcoming
retirement of the shuttle. The excellent service you and other Times science
reporters provide in educating the public would be enhanced if you would
publish measures in the units that scientists actually used to report them,
perhaps with parenthetical translations. We all learned metric units in grade
school, and for readers of the Times science pages, even parenthetical
translations into traditional units are scarcely necessary.
Keep up the great science reporting, but help America keep moving forward on
metric usage, as NASA is doing, and pass on NASA's measurements straight-up.
From: Kenneth Chang
To: Victor Jockin
Date: July 8, 2008
Thank you very much for the compliments. I personally would love it if the
U.S. went metric -- I've generated a number of corrections by botching the
conversion from metric to English units (all too easy to do, since no one
thinks in millionths of an inch or minus-500 Fahrenheit, and then it's too late
before you realize minus-500 is impossible).
The New York Times stylebook says, "Ordinarily convert measurements from the
metric system to the American one. Delete the original measure unless it is
truly useful." Putting both values in gets clumsy and distracting (in the same
way that the speed limit signs in mph and km/hr were never useful or edifying).
On the Web, we could insert pop-up links so that the reader could move the
mouse over a quantity and the metric value would pop up. I haven't been able to
convince anyone to implement this idea...
Thanks for your email.
----- Original Message -----
From: VictorJockin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 3:22 AM
Subject: [USMA:41344] Journalism & AP Guidelines
I've been thinking about the issue of the AP style guidelines that came up
a couple of weeks back, and it seems to me that we need to put our heads
together and decide what our best shot is at doing something about this.
Requiring traditional units in news stories, typically to the exclusion of
metric units, is obviously a huge obstacle to general use of metric. But it's
a barrier that doesn't require legislative action to fix, something we lack the
influence and/or money to achieve. It wouldn't be easy to change AP's mind, of
course, but it would be easier than changing Congress's mind, and would
represent an important and concrete step forward.
First, we could use our existing connections to assemble the largest
coalition of scientists, educators, journalists, etc., that we can. Through
networking, the group of signatories could grow quite large. We may need to
circulate a draft for some time, perhaps a year or more, and we should focus on
recruiting as many journalists and journalism professors as possible. Then, we
need to jointly and formally approach AP with our statement, and the angle we
should take with them, it seems to me, is objectivity. Journalistic style
guidelines should not require reporters to take sides on social issues, or to
advocate for particular political outcomes. Traditional units, we should point
out, are not the law of the land, but a social preference. And in fact, it was
the intent of Congress to initiate and encourage a voluntary transition away
from that historical social preference and toward the metric system. Should
this transition take place or not? That's a social and political question that
a journalist should not be required, as a matter of style, to take sides on.
And yet, that is just what AP is doing. It would be as if AP specified that
journalists not use the term African American in place of black. Social
preferences continually evolve on such issues, and good journalists are
witnesses, not advocates, during such transitions.
Thoughts?
