I think the word "Ordinarily" in the style guide could be his way
out...of course open to interpretation of the editor. Science
reporting doesn't have to stick to ordinary.
At 03:20 2008-07-09, STANLEY DOORE wrote:
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: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Victor Jockin
To: <mailto:[email protected]>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: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>VictorJockin
To: <mailto:[email protected]>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?
