Published October 4, 2025

Everyone brings rules-of-writing and rules-of-editing baggage with them to their newsroom job. By rules, I mean “rules.” Zombie rules. “It’s a rule I learned and strictly enforce but have never seriously thought about” rules.

It’s a problem. The bigger the newsroom, and the more bosses you have, the more problems there are. Everyone is right, of course. The way you know you’re wrong is by checking where you rank on the organizational chart.

So many of the rules feel like something approaching or surpassing make-work, becoming what a friend compares to digging ditches, under strict order, and then having to put the dirt back in the holes you dug.

It’s wrong o’clock somewhere

If you work with words long enough, everything looks wrong, and everything looks right. You know the saying, “It’s five o’clock somewhere?” Whatever someone taught you, it’s right somewhere, and it’s wrong somewhere.

(Aside: Newsroom scolds would be sure to let you know it’s 5 p.m., not five o’clock.

I worked on a copy desk where the elders laid down the law: it’s “in connection with,” not “in connection to,” as in “Smith was arrested in connection with the bank robbery.”

Do not deviate. It’s “in connection with,” never “in connection to.”

A few years later, one of the elders retired. Another longtime copy editor left for another line of work. Another left for another editing job. One was fired. “In connection to” showed up in a story I was checking. I asked one of the remaining elders about it.

It’s fine, they said. No real difference between “in connection to” and “in connection with.” Okay, whatever. But why lead me to believe that wasn’t the case, on pain of torture or death?

It was a reminder that what’s right is what the senior person on duty says is right on any given night. I screamed loudly when I got inside my car in the parking lot after work. This sort of happened all the time.

Still does.

All of this happened around the time I started saying, “I don’t know what you young people are doing with prepositions nowadays, but I love ya anyway.” I guess I had it coming.

We’ll discuss headlines soon

Headline-ese is too big a topic to tack on as a tangent, but writing this post reminded me of one type of headline newspapers write for print because of space limitations.

Man in court in bank robbery

It’s shorthand for “Man appears in court in connection with bank robbery.”

Online, you get a few more words to say it.

Search engine optimization being a thing, you might be tempted to go with, “Taylor Swift has nothing to do with this story, but a man appeared in court today in connection with Monday’s bank robbery.”

Speaking of headlines

I revised my headline for this post. Copy desks saved my bacon many times when I was a reporter and columnist, and this world needs more copy desks. I’d just like for them to be allowed to spend less time on things that don’t really matter and more time on the things that do matter. Open some windows. Let in some fresh air.

I’ve got nothing else for you today. Hold your bosses and superiors to a higher standard. Have them get on the same page. Protect your peace.

Sending love.

♥

Thank you

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Image by SergioVas via Shutterstock.

In other news, Portland is fine