Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States in the 1970s, resulting from the break-in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the President of the United States Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974, the first—and so far, only—resignation of any U.S President. It also resulted in the indictment and conviction of several Nixon administration officials.
The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The FBI connected the payments to the burglars to a slush fund used by the 1972 Committee to Re-elect the President.[1][2] As evidence mounted against the president's staff, which included former staff members testifying against them in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations.[3][4] Recordings from these tapes implicated the president, revealing that he had attempted to cover up the break-in.[2][5] After a series of court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president had to hand over the tapes; he ultimately complied.
Facing near-certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and a strong possibility of a conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974.[6][7] His successor, Gerald Ford, issued a pardon to President Nixon after his resignation.
On the evening of June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate Complex, noticed tape covering the latch on locks on several doors in the complex (leaving the doors unlocked). He took off the tape, and thought nothing of it. An hour later, he discovered that someone had retaped the locks. Wills called the police and five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) office.[8] The five men were Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James W. McCord, Jr., Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis. The five were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them and two other men (E. Howard Hunt, Jr. and G. Gordon Liddy)[9] for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping laws.
The men who broke into the office were tried and convicted on January 30, 1973. After much investigation, all five men were directly, or indirectly, tied to the 1972 Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, or sometimes pejoratively referred to as CReeP). The trial judge, John J. Sirica, suspected a conspiracy involving higher-echelon government officials.[10] In March 1973, James McCord wrote a letter to Sirica, claiming that he was under political pressure to plead guilty and he implicated high-ranking government officials, including former Attorney General John Mitchell.[11] His letter helped to elevate the affair into a more prominent political scandal.[12]
Investigation
The unraveling of the coverup began in the immediate aftermath of the arrests, the search of the burglars' hotel rooms, and a background investigation of the initial evidence, most prominently thousands of dollars in cash in their possession at the time of arrest. On June 19, 1972, it was publicly revealed that one of the Watergate burglars was a GOP security aide. Former Attorney General John Mitchell, who at the time was the head of the Nixon re-election campaign, denied any involvement with the Watergate break-in or knowledge of the five burglars. On August 1, a $25,000 cashiers check earmarked for the Nixon re-election campaign, was found in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. Further investigation would reveal accounts showing that still more thousands had passed through their bank and credit card accounts, supporting their travel, living expenses, and purchases, in the months leading up to their arrests. Examination of the burglars' accounts showed the link to the 1972 Committee to Re-Elect the President, through its subordinate finance committee.
Several individual donations (totaling $89,000) were made by individuals who thought they were making private donations to the President's re-election committee. The donations were made in the form of cashier's, certified, and personal checks, and all were made payable only to the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Investigative examination of the bank records of a Miami company run by Watergate burglar Bernard Barker revealed that an account controlled by him personally had deposited, and had transferred to it (through the Federal Reserve Check Clearing System) the funds from these financial instruments.
The banks that had originated the checks (especially the certified and cashier's checks) were keen to ensure that the depository institution used by Bernard Barker had acted properly to protect their (the correspondent banks') fiduciary interest in ensuring that the checks had been properly received and endorsed by the check’s payee, prior to its acceptance for deposit in Bernard Barker's account. Only in this way would the correspondent banks, which had issued the checks on behalf of the individual donors, not be held liable for the un-authorized and improper release of funds from their customer’s accounts into the account of Bernard Barker.
The investigative finding, which cleared Bernard Barker’s bank of fiduciary malfeasance, led to the direct implication of members of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, to whom the checks had been delivered. Those individuals were the Committee Bookkeeper and its Treasurer, Hugh Sloan.
The Committee, as an organization, followed normal business accounting standards in allowing only duly authorized individual(s) to accept and endorse on behalf of the Committee any financial instrument created on the Committee’s behalf by itself, or by others. Therefore, no financial institution would accept or process a check on behalf of the Committee unless it had been endorsed and verified as endorsed by a duly authorized individual(s). On the checks themselves deposited into Bernard Barker’s bank account was the endorsement of Committee Treasurer Hugh Sloan who was duly authorized and designated to endorse such instruments that were prepared (by others) on behalf of the Committee.
But once Sloan had endorsed a check made payable to the Committee, he had a legal and fiduciary responsibility to see that the check was deposited into the account(s) which were named on the check, and for which he had been delegated fiduciary responsibility. Sloan failed to do that. He was confronted and faced the potential charge of federal bank fraud; he revealed that he had given the checks to G. Gordon Liddy and was directed by Committee Deputy Director Jeb Magruder and Finance Director Maurice Stans to do so.
On September 29, 1972 it was revealed that John Mitchell, while serving as Attorney General, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance intelligence-gathering against the Democrats. On October 10, the FBI reported that the Watergate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of the officials and heads of the Nixon re-election campaign. Despite these revelations, Nixon's re-election campaign was never seriously jeopardized, and on November 7 the President was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides ever in American political history.
Barker had been given the checks by Liddy in an attempt to avoid direct proof that Barker ever had received funds from the organization. Barker had attempted to disguise the origin of the funds by depositing the donor’s checks into bank accounts which (though controlled by him), were located in banks outside of the United States. What Barker, Liddy, and Sloan did not know was that the complete record of all such transactions are held, after the funds cleared, for roughly six months. Barker’s use of foreign banks to deposit checks and withdraw the funds via cashier’s checks and money orders in April and May 1972 guaranteed that the banks would keep the entire transaction record at least until October and November 1972.
The connection between the break-in and the re-election campaign committee was highlighted by media coverage. In particular, investigative coverage by Time, The New York Times, and especially The Washington Post, fueled focus on the event. The coverage dramatically increased publicity and consequent political repercussions. Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information suggesting that knowledge of the break-in, and attempts to cover it up, led deep into the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and even the White House. Chief among the Post's anonymous sources was an individual they had nicknamed Deep Throat (who was much later revealed in 2005 to be former Deputy Director of the FBI William Mark Felt, Sr.) It was Deep Throat who met secretly with Woodward, and told him of Howard Hunt’s involvement with the Watergate break-in, and that the rest of the White House staff regarded the stake in Watergate extremely high. Deep Throat also warned Woodward that the FBI wanted to know where he and the other reporters were getting the information which was uncovering even a wider web of crimes than first disclosed. In one of their last meetings, all of which took place at an underground parking garage somewhere in Washington DC at 2:00 AM, Deep Throat cautioned Woodward that he might be followed and not to trust their phone conversations.
Rather than ending with the trial and conviction of the burglars, the investigations grew broader; a Senate committee chaired by Senator Sam Ervin was set up to examine Watergate and began issuing subpoenas to White House staff members.
On April 30, 1973, Nixon was forced to ask for the resignation of two of his most influential aides, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, both of whom were indicted and ultimately went to prison. He also fired White House Counsel John Dean, who went on to testify before the Senate and become the key witness against President Nixon.
The President announced these resignations in an address to the American people:
In one of the most difficult decisions of my Presidency, I accepted the resignations of two of my closest associates in the White House, Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to know. Because Attorney General Kleindienst, though a distinguished public servant, my personal friend for 20 years, with no personal involvement whatever in this matter has been a close personal and professional associate of some of those who are involved in this case, he and I both felt that it was also necessary to name a new Attorney General. The Counsel to the President, John Dean, has also resigned.
—Richard Nixon, [13]
On the same day, Nixon appointed a new Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, and gave him authority to designate, for the Watergate inquiry, a special counsel who would be independent of the regular Justice Department hierarchy. In May 1973, Richardson named Archibald Cox to the position.
Tapes
The hearings held by the Senate Committee, in which Dean and other former administration officials delivered testimony, were broadcast from May 17 to August 7, 1973, causing political damage to the President. After the three major networks of the time agreed to take turns covering the hearings live (the first 24-hour news channel was not introduced until 1980), each network thus maintained coverage of the hearings every third day, starting with ABC on May 17 and ending with NBC on August 7. An estimated 85% of Americans with television sets tuned in to at least one portion of the hearings.[14]
On Friday, July 13, 1973, in an interview session, Donald Sanders, the Deputy Minority Counsel, asked Alexander Butterfield if there was any type of recording systems in the White House.[15] Butterfield answered that, though he was reluctant to say so, there was a system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office and other rooms in the White House, including the Cabinet Room and Nixon's private office in the Old Executive Office Building. On Monday, July 16, 1973, in front of a live, televised audience, Chief Minority Counsel Fred Thompson asked Butterfield if he was "aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?" The shocking revelation transformed the Watergate investigation yet again. The tapes were soon subpoenaed by special prosecutor Archibald Cox and then by the Senate. Nixon refused to release them, citing his executive privilege as President of the United States, and ordered Cox to drop his subpoena. Cox refused.[16]
A taped conversation that was crucial to the case against President Nixon [17] took place between the President and his counsel, John Dean, on March 21, 1973. In this conversation, Dean summarizes many aspects of the Watergate case, and then focuses on the subsequent coverup, describing it as a "cancer on the presidency". The burglary team was being paid hush money for their silence and Dean states: "that's the most troublesome post-thing, because Bob [Haldeman] is involved in that; John [Ehrlichman] is involved in that; I am involved in that; Mitchell is involved in that. And that's an obstruction of justice."[18] Dean continues and states that Howard Hunt is blackmailing the White House, demanding money immediately, and President Nixon states that the blackmail money should be paid: "...just looking at the immediate problem, don't you have to have -- handle Hunt's financial situation damn soon? [...] you've got to keep the cap on the bottle that much, in order to have any options." [18] At the time of the initial congressional impeachment debate on Watergate, it was not known that Nixon had known and approved of the payments to the Watergate defendants much earlier than this conversation. Among later released recordings, Nixon's conversation with Haldeman on August 1, 1972 is one of several tapes that establishes this. Nixon states: "Well...they have to be paid. That's all there is to that. They have to be paid" [19] During congressional debate on impeachment, those who believed that impeachment required a criminally indictable offense focused their attention on President Nixon's agreement to make the blackmail payments, regarding this as an affirmative act to obstruct justice as a member of the cover-up conspiracy.[20]
"Saturday Night Massacre"
Cox's refusal to drop his subpoena influenced Nixon to demand the resignations of Richardson and deputy William Ruckelshaus, on October 20, 1973, in a search of someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox. This search ended with Solicitor General Robert Bork. Though Bork believed Nixon's order to be valid and appropriate, he considered resigning to avoid being "perceived as a man who did the President's bidding to save my job."[21] However, both Richardson and Ruckelshaus persuaded him not to resign, in order to prevent any further damage to the Justice Department. As the new acting department head, Bork carried out the presidential order and dismissed the special prosecutor. Allegations of wrongdoing prompted Nixon to famously state "I'm not a crook" in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors on November 17, 1973.[22][23]
Nixon was compelled, however, to allow the appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued the investigation. While Nixon continued to refuse to turn over actual tapes, he agreed to release transcripts of a large number of them; Nixon cited the fact that any audio pertinent to national security information could be redacted from the released tapes.
The audio tapes caused further controversy on December 7, when an 18½ minute portion of one tape was found to have been erased. Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, said she had accidentally erased the tape by pushing the wrong foot pedal on her tape player while answering the phone. However, as photos all over the press showed, it was unlikely for Woods to answer the phone and keep her foot on the pedal. Later forensic analysis determined that the tape had been erased in several segments — at least five, and perhaps as many as nine.[24]
Supreme Court
The issue of access to the tapes went to the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in United States v. Nixon, the Court, which did not include the recused Justice William Rehnquist, ruled unanimously that claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void, and they ordered the president to give them to the special prosecutor. On July 30, 1974, President Nixon complied with the order and released the subpoenaed tapes.
Final investigations and resignation
On March 1, 1974, former aides to the president, known as the "Watergate Seven" — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson — were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. John Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and other figures had already pleaded guilty. On April 5, 1974, former Nixon appointments secretary Dwight Chapin was convicted of lying to the grand jury. Two days later, the Watergate grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.
Nixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious, and the House of Representatives began formal investigations into the possible impeachment of the president. The House Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 on July 27, 1974 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the president: obstruction of justice. The second (abuse of power) and third (contempt of Congress) articles were passed on July 29, 1974 and July 30, 1974, respectively.
The "Smoking Gun" tape
On August 5, 1974, the previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972, was released. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented Nixon and Haldeman meeting in the Oval Office and formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved. Haldeman introduces the topic as follows: "...the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the--in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have... their investigation is now leading into some productive areas [...] and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go." After explaining how the money from CRP was traced to the burglars, Haldeman explained to Nixon the coverup plan: "the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, 'Stay the hell out of this ...this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.'" President Nixon approved the plan, and he is given more information about the involvement of his campaign in the break-in, telling Haldeman: "All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest." Returning to the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI, he instructs Haldeman: "You call them in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it." [25]
Prior to the release of this tape, President Nixon had denied political motivations in his instructions to the CIA, and claimed he had no knowledge prior to March 21, 1973 of any involvement by senior campaign officials such as John Mitchell. The contents of this tape persuaded President Nixon's own lawyers, Fred Buzhardt and James St. Clair, "The tape proved that the President had lied to the nation, to his closest aides, and to his own lawyers – for more than two years." [26] The tape, which was referred to as a "smoking gun", hampered Nixon politically. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the committee announced that they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House.
Resignation
Throughout this time, Nixon still denied any involvement in the ordeal. However, after being told by key Republican Senators that enough votes existed to remove him, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on the evening of August 8, 1974, the president said,
In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future....
I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.
I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
The morning that his resignation was to take effect, President and Mrs. Nixon and their family bade farewell to the White House staff in the East Room.[29] A helicopter took him from the White House to Andrews Air Force base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he remembered thinking "As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?..." At Andrews, he boarded Air Force One to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California and then to his home in San Clemente.
Pardon and aftermath
Though President Nixon's resignation prompted Congress to drop the impeachment proceedings, criminal prosecution was still a possibility. Nixon was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford, who on September 8, 1974, issued a full and unconditional pardon of President Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had "committed or may have committed or taken part in" as President.[30] In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interest of the country and that the Nixon family's situation "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."[31]
Nixon proclaimed his innocence until his death in 1994. He did state in his official response to the pardon that he "was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy."
The Nixon pardon has been argued to be a factor in President Ford's loss of the presidential election of 1976.[32] Accusations of a secret deal made with Ford, promising a pardon in return for Nixon's resignation, led Ford to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974.[33][34]
In his autobiography A Time to Heal, Ford wrote about a meeting he had with Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. He could try to ride out the impeachment and fight against conviction in the Senate all the way, or he could resign. His options for resigning were to delay his resignation until further along in the impeachment process to try and settle for a censure vote in Congress, or pardon himself and then resign. Haig then told Ford that some of Nixon's staff suggested that Nixon could agree to resign in return for an agreement that Ford would pardon him.
Haig emphasized that these weren't his suggestions. He didn't identify the staff members and he made it very clear that he wasn't recommending any one option over another. What he wanted to know was whether or not my overall assessment of the situation agreed with his.[emphasis in original]... Next he asked if I had any suggestions as to courses of actions for the President. I didn't think it would be proper for me to make any recommendations at all, and I told him so.
—Gerald Ford, [35]
Charles Colson pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Daniel Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of the Committee to Re-elect the President was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974, and on January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman entered prison in 1976, followed by the other two in 1977.
The effect on the upcoming Senate election and House race, only three months later, was significant. The Democrats gained five seats in the Senate and 49 in the House. Watergate was also indirectly responsible for changes in campaign financing. It was a driving factor in amending the Freedom of Information Act in 1974, as well as laws requiring new financial disclosures by key government officials, such as the Ethics in Government Act. While not legally required, other types of personal disclosure, such as releasing recent income tax forms, became expected. Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded many of their conversations, but after Watergate this practice purportedly ended.
Also, Congress investigated the scope of the President's actual legal powers, and belatedly realized that the United States had been in a continuous open-ended state of emergency since 1950, which led to the enactment of the National Emergencies Act in 1976.
The Watergate scandal left such an impression on the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix "-gate".
According to Thomas J. Johnson, professor of journalism at Southern Illinois University, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger boldly predicted during Nixon's final days that history would remember Nixon as a great president and that Watergate would be relegated to a "minor footnote." [36]
Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession.[37][38][39] In order to defuse public demand for direct federal regulation of lawyers (as opposed to leaving it in the hands of state bar associations or courts), the American Bar Association (ABA) launched two major reforms. First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure and replaced it with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in 1983.[40] The MRPC have been adopted in part or in whole by 48 states. Its preamble contains an emphatic reminder to young lawyers that the legal profession can remain self-governing only if lawyers behave properly. Second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional responsibility (which means they must study the MRPC). The requirement remains in effect.
Purpose of the break-in
Despite the enormous impact of the Watergate scandal, the actual purpose of the break-in of the DNC offices has never been conclusively established. Some theories suggest that the burglars were after specific information. The likeliest of these theories suggests that the target of the break-in was the offices of Larry O'Brien, the Chairman of the DNC.[41] In 1968, O'Brien was appointed by Vice President Hubert Humphrey to serve as the national director of Humphrey's presidential campaign and, separately, by Howard Hughes, to serve as Hughes' public-policy lobbyist in Washington. O'Brien was elected national chairman of the DNC in 1968 and 1970. With the upcoming Presidential election, former Howard Hughes business associate John H. Meier, working with Hubert Humphrey and others, wanted to feed misinformation to Richard Nixon. John Meier's father had been a German agent during World War II. Meier had joined the FBI and in the 60s had contracted to the CIA to eliminate Fidel Castro using Mafia bosses Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante.[42] In late 1971, the President’s brother, Donald Nixon, was collecting intelligence for his brother at the time and was asking Meier about Larry O'Brien. In 1956, Donald Nixon had borrowed $205,000 from Howard Hughes and never repaid the loan. The fact of the loan surfaced during the 1960 presidential election campaign embarrassing Richard Nixon and became a real political liability. According to author Donald M. Bartlett, Richard Nixon would do whatever was necessary to prevent another Hughes-Nixon family embarrassment.[43] From 1968 to 1970, Hughes withdrew nearly half a million dollars from the Texas National Bank of Commerce for contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, including presidential candidates Humphrey and Nixon. Hughes wanted Donald Nixon and Meier involved but Richard Nixon was opposed to their involvement.[44]
Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released, and that Larry O’Brien had the information,[45] (O’Brien who had received $25,000 from Hughes didn’t actually have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think he did). It is only a question of conjecture then that Donald called his brother Richard and told him that Meier gave the Democrats all the Hughes information that could destroy him and that O’Brien had the proof.[46] The fact is Larry O'Brien, elected Democratic Party Chairman, was also a lobbyist for Howard Hughes in a Democratic controlled Congress and the possibility of his finding about Hughes illegal contributions to the Nixon campaign was too much of a danger for Nixon to ignore and O'Brien's office at Watergate became a target of Nixon's intelligence in the political campaign.[47] This theory has been proposed as a motivation for the break-in.
Numerous theories have persisted in claiming deeper significance to the Watergate scandal than that commonly acknowledged by media and historians:
• In the book The Ends of Power, Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman claimed that the term "Bay of Pigs", mentioned by Nixon in a tape-recorded White House conversation as the reason the CIA should put a stop to the Watergate investigations,[2] was used by Nixon as a coded reference to a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro during the John F. Kennedy administration. The CIA had not disclosed this plot to the Warren Commission, the commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, despite the fact that it would attribute a motive to Castro in the assassination.[48] Any such revelation would also expose CIA/Mafia connections that could lead to unwanted scrutiny of suspected CIA/Mafia participants in the assassination of the president. Furthermore, Nixon's awareness as vice-president of the Bay of Pigs plan and his own ties to the underworld and unsavory intelligence operations might come to light. A theoretical connection between the Kennedy assassination and the Watergate Tapes was later referred to in the biopic, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone.
• Silent Coup, is a bestselling 1992 book written by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin in which they contend that former Nixon White House counsel John Dean orchestrated the 1972 Watergate burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters to protect his future wife, Maureen Biner, by removing information linking her to a call-girl (prostitute) ring that worked for the DNC. The authors also argued that Alexander Haig was not Deep Throat but was a key source for Bob Woodward, who as a Naval officer had briefed Haig at the White House in 1969 and 1970.[49][50]
• Secret Honor by Stone and Freed implies that Nixon deliberately sacrificed his presidency to save democracy from a plan to implement martial law. The theory uses the construct of "Yankees" vs. "Cowboys" to suggest that, since the postwar era, the United States has been dominated by Yankees competing with Cowboys. Nixon, who hailed from the Southwest, was initially backed by the military industrial defense contractor power-brokers (the Cowboys); however, he later wanted to jump ship and return government to the east-coast establishment of Yankees. His resignation accomplished this because Nelson Rockefeller, the epitome of the eastern economic elite, assumed the vice presidency after Nixon's resignation.
• Peter Beter's Conspiracy Against the Dollar further explains how Nixon was possibly a rogue liberal with a conservative mask.
• Gordon Novel, a man known for several controversial investigations, has claimed Watergate served as a discourse to stop the Nixon administration to hold Senate hearings about a postmortem on the Vietnam war.[51]
• Political scientist George Friedman argued that: "The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn't what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat's identity" and that FBI under the direction of Mark Felt must have began spying on the White House before the Watergate break-in.[52] In fact Felt was later revealed to have been the Post's source known as "Deep Throat."
• MIT professor Noam Chomsky argued that it was Nixon's dismantling of the Bretton Woods system that made him an enemy of multinational corporations and international bankers.[53]
New Nixon Library Museum exhibit stalled
A "searing" exhibit on the scandal at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California prepared by the National Archives was supposed to have opened July 1, 2010. The exhibit had not opened by August 9 because of objections from the Nixon Foundation, "a group of Nixon loyalists who controlled the museum until the Archives took it over" in 2007. A room for the new exhibit sits largely empty at the Museum. "Bob Bostock, a former Nixon aide who designed the original Watergate exhibit and has been enlisted by the foundation to challenge the installation, filed a 132-page letter of objection to the archives [a month after the scheduled opening date], claiming that the [new] exhibit lacked the context needed to help young visitors learning about Watergate to understand exactly what Nixon did. ... 'It is the last fight over Watergate,' said Timothy Naftali, the director of the museum .... Mr. Naftali has overseen the release of a flood of Nixon papers and tapes since ... 2006. [and said] he was confident a resolution could be worked out that addressed at least some of the concerns of both sides." Mr. Bostock said he'd worked for the former president during the last five years of Nixon's life and worked with him on the original Watergate exhibit, now removed, in the museum. Bostock also "questioned whether [Nixon's] misdeeds justified [his] being forced from the White House." Jon Wiener, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, who would take his classes to the museum on annual field trips as it studied Nixon, said of the previous exhibit, "It was a long dark tunnel that was completely uninviting, block ... after block of small panels, white text on a black wall. It had to go."[54] An extensive online background to the exhibit, with some 150 oral histories and tape snippets, along with pictures of some 30 principals, has been posted by the museum.[55]
The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The FBI connected the payments to the burglars to a slush fund used by the 1972 Committee to Re-elect the President.[1][2] As evidence mounted against the president's staff, which included former staff members testifying against them in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations.[3][4] Recordings from these tapes implicated the president, revealing that he had attempted to cover up the break-in.[2][5] After a series of court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president had to hand over the tapes; he ultimately complied.
Facing near-certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and a strong possibility of a conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974.[6][7] His successor, Gerald Ford, issued a pardon to President Nixon after his resignation.
On the evening of June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate Complex, noticed tape covering the latch on locks on several doors in the complex (leaving the doors unlocked). He took off the tape, and thought nothing of it. An hour later, he discovered that someone had retaped the locks. Wills called the police and five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) office.[8] The five men were Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James W. McCord, Jr., Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis. The five were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them and two other men (E. Howard Hunt, Jr. and G. Gordon Liddy)[9] for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping laws.
The men who broke into the office were tried and convicted on January 30, 1973. After much investigation, all five men were directly, or indirectly, tied to the 1972 Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, or sometimes pejoratively referred to as CReeP). The trial judge, John J. Sirica, suspected a conspiracy involving higher-echelon government officials.[10] In March 1973, James McCord wrote a letter to Sirica, claiming that he was under political pressure to plead guilty and he implicated high-ranking government officials, including former Attorney General John Mitchell.[11] His letter helped to elevate the affair into a more prominent political scandal.[12]
Investigation
The unraveling of the coverup began in the immediate aftermath of the arrests, the search of the burglars' hotel rooms, and a background investigation of the initial evidence, most prominently thousands of dollars in cash in their possession at the time of arrest. On June 19, 1972, it was publicly revealed that one of the Watergate burglars was a GOP security aide. Former Attorney General John Mitchell, who at the time was the head of the Nixon re-election campaign, denied any involvement with the Watergate break-in or knowledge of the five burglars. On August 1, a $25,000 cashiers check earmarked for the Nixon re-election campaign, was found in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. Further investigation would reveal accounts showing that still more thousands had passed through their bank and credit card accounts, supporting their travel, living expenses, and purchases, in the months leading up to their arrests. Examination of the burglars' accounts showed the link to the 1972 Committee to Re-Elect the President, through its subordinate finance committee.
Several individual donations (totaling $89,000) were made by individuals who thought they were making private donations to the President's re-election committee. The donations were made in the form of cashier's, certified, and personal checks, and all were made payable only to the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Investigative examination of the bank records of a Miami company run by Watergate burglar Bernard Barker revealed that an account controlled by him personally had deposited, and had transferred to it (through the Federal Reserve Check Clearing System) the funds from these financial instruments.
The banks that had originated the checks (especially the certified and cashier's checks) were keen to ensure that the depository institution used by Bernard Barker had acted properly to protect their (the correspondent banks') fiduciary interest in ensuring that the checks had been properly received and endorsed by the check’s payee, prior to its acceptance for deposit in Bernard Barker's account. Only in this way would the correspondent banks, which had issued the checks on behalf of the individual donors, not be held liable for the un-authorized and improper release of funds from their customer’s accounts into the account of Bernard Barker.
The investigative finding, which cleared Bernard Barker’s bank of fiduciary malfeasance, led to the direct implication of members of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, to whom the checks had been delivered. Those individuals were the Committee Bookkeeper and its Treasurer, Hugh Sloan.
The Committee, as an organization, followed normal business accounting standards in allowing only duly authorized individual(s) to accept and endorse on behalf of the Committee any financial instrument created on the Committee’s behalf by itself, or by others. Therefore, no financial institution would accept or process a check on behalf of the Committee unless it had been endorsed and verified as endorsed by a duly authorized individual(s). On the checks themselves deposited into Bernard Barker’s bank account was the endorsement of Committee Treasurer Hugh Sloan who was duly authorized and designated to endorse such instruments that were prepared (by others) on behalf of the Committee.
But once Sloan had endorsed a check made payable to the Committee, he had a legal and fiduciary responsibility to see that the check was deposited into the account(s) which were named on the check, and for which he had been delegated fiduciary responsibility. Sloan failed to do that. He was confronted and faced the potential charge of federal bank fraud; he revealed that he had given the checks to G. Gordon Liddy and was directed by Committee Deputy Director Jeb Magruder and Finance Director Maurice Stans to do so.
On September 29, 1972 it was revealed that John Mitchell, while serving as Attorney General, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance intelligence-gathering against the Democrats. On October 10, the FBI reported that the Watergate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of the officials and heads of the Nixon re-election campaign. Despite these revelations, Nixon's re-election campaign was never seriously jeopardized, and on November 7 the President was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides ever in American political history.
Barker had been given the checks by Liddy in an attempt to avoid direct proof that Barker ever had received funds from the organization. Barker had attempted to disguise the origin of the funds by depositing the donor’s checks into bank accounts which (though controlled by him), were located in banks outside of the United States. What Barker, Liddy, and Sloan did not know was that the complete record of all such transactions are held, after the funds cleared, for roughly six months. Barker’s use of foreign banks to deposit checks and withdraw the funds via cashier’s checks and money orders in April and May 1972 guaranteed that the banks would keep the entire transaction record at least until October and November 1972.
The connection between the break-in and the re-election campaign committee was highlighted by media coverage. In particular, investigative coverage by Time, The New York Times, and especially The Washington Post, fueled focus on the event. The coverage dramatically increased publicity and consequent political repercussions. Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information suggesting that knowledge of the break-in, and attempts to cover it up, led deep into the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and even the White House. Chief among the Post's anonymous sources was an individual they had nicknamed Deep Throat (who was much later revealed in 2005 to be former Deputy Director of the FBI William Mark Felt, Sr.) It was Deep Throat who met secretly with Woodward, and told him of Howard Hunt’s involvement with the Watergate break-in, and that the rest of the White House staff regarded the stake in Watergate extremely high. Deep Throat also warned Woodward that the FBI wanted to know where he and the other reporters were getting the information which was uncovering even a wider web of crimes than first disclosed. In one of their last meetings, all of which took place at an underground parking garage somewhere in Washington DC at 2:00 AM, Deep Throat cautioned Woodward that he might be followed and not to trust their phone conversations.
Rather than ending with the trial and conviction of the burglars, the investigations grew broader; a Senate committee chaired by Senator Sam Ervin was set up to examine Watergate and began issuing subpoenas to White House staff members.
On April 30, 1973, Nixon was forced to ask for the resignation of two of his most influential aides, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, both of whom were indicted and ultimately went to prison. He also fired White House Counsel John Dean, who went on to testify before the Senate and become the key witness against President Nixon.
The President announced these resignations in an address to the American people:
In one of the most difficult decisions of my Presidency, I accepted the resignations of two of my closest associates in the White House, Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to know. Because Attorney General Kleindienst, though a distinguished public servant, my personal friend for 20 years, with no personal involvement whatever in this matter has been a close personal and professional associate of some of those who are involved in this case, he and I both felt that it was also necessary to name a new Attorney General. The Counsel to the President, John Dean, has also resigned.
—Richard Nixon, [13]
On the same day, Nixon appointed a new Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, and gave him authority to designate, for the Watergate inquiry, a special counsel who would be independent of the regular Justice Department hierarchy. In May 1973, Richardson named Archibald Cox to the position.
Tapes
The hearings held by the Senate Committee, in which Dean and other former administration officials delivered testimony, were broadcast from May 17 to August 7, 1973, causing political damage to the President. After the three major networks of the time agreed to take turns covering the hearings live (the first 24-hour news channel was not introduced until 1980), each network thus maintained coverage of the hearings every third day, starting with ABC on May 17 and ending with NBC on August 7. An estimated 85% of Americans with television sets tuned in to at least one portion of the hearings.[14]
On Friday, July 13, 1973, in an interview session, Donald Sanders, the Deputy Minority Counsel, asked Alexander Butterfield if there was any type of recording systems in the White House.[15] Butterfield answered that, though he was reluctant to say so, there was a system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office and other rooms in the White House, including the Cabinet Room and Nixon's private office in the Old Executive Office Building. On Monday, July 16, 1973, in front of a live, televised audience, Chief Minority Counsel Fred Thompson asked Butterfield if he was "aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?" The shocking revelation transformed the Watergate investigation yet again. The tapes were soon subpoenaed by special prosecutor Archibald Cox and then by the Senate. Nixon refused to release them, citing his executive privilege as President of the United States, and ordered Cox to drop his subpoena. Cox refused.[16]
A taped conversation that was crucial to the case against President Nixon [17] took place between the President and his counsel, John Dean, on March 21, 1973. In this conversation, Dean summarizes many aspects of the Watergate case, and then focuses on the subsequent coverup, describing it as a "cancer on the presidency". The burglary team was being paid hush money for their silence and Dean states: "that's the most troublesome post-thing, because Bob [Haldeman] is involved in that; John [Ehrlichman] is involved in that; I am involved in that; Mitchell is involved in that. And that's an obstruction of justice."[18] Dean continues and states that Howard Hunt is blackmailing the White House, demanding money immediately, and President Nixon states that the blackmail money should be paid: "...just looking at the immediate problem, don't you have to have -- handle Hunt's financial situation damn soon? [...] you've got to keep the cap on the bottle that much, in order to have any options." [18] At the time of the initial congressional impeachment debate on Watergate, it was not known that Nixon had known and approved of the payments to the Watergate defendants much earlier than this conversation. Among later released recordings, Nixon's conversation with Haldeman on August 1, 1972 is one of several tapes that establishes this. Nixon states: "Well...they have to be paid. That's all there is to that. They have to be paid" [19] During congressional debate on impeachment, those who believed that impeachment required a criminally indictable offense focused their attention on President Nixon's agreement to make the blackmail payments, regarding this as an affirmative act to obstruct justice as a member of the cover-up conspiracy.[20]
"Saturday Night Massacre"
Cox's refusal to drop his subpoena influenced Nixon to demand the resignations of Richardson and deputy William Ruckelshaus, on October 20, 1973, in a search of someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox. This search ended with Solicitor General Robert Bork. Though Bork believed Nixon's order to be valid and appropriate, he considered resigning to avoid being "perceived as a man who did the President's bidding to save my job."[21] However, both Richardson and Ruckelshaus persuaded him not to resign, in order to prevent any further damage to the Justice Department. As the new acting department head, Bork carried out the presidential order and dismissed the special prosecutor. Allegations of wrongdoing prompted Nixon to famously state "I'm not a crook" in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors on November 17, 1973.[22][23]
Nixon was compelled, however, to allow the appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued the investigation. While Nixon continued to refuse to turn over actual tapes, he agreed to release transcripts of a large number of them; Nixon cited the fact that any audio pertinent to national security information could be redacted from the released tapes.
The audio tapes caused further controversy on December 7, when an 18½ minute portion of one tape was found to have been erased. Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, said she had accidentally erased the tape by pushing the wrong foot pedal on her tape player while answering the phone. However, as photos all over the press showed, it was unlikely for Woods to answer the phone and keep her foot on the pedal. Later forensic analysis determined that the tape had been erased in several segments — at least five, and perhaps as many as nine.[24]
Supreme Court
The issue of access to the tapes went to the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in United States v. Nixon, the Court, which did not include the recused Justice William Rehnquist, ruled unanimously that claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void, and they ordered the president to give them to the special prosecutor. On July 30, 1974, President Nixon complied with the order and released the subpoenaed tapes.
Final investigations and resignation
On March 1, 1974, former aides to the president, known as the "Watergate Seven" — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson — were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. John Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and other figures had already pleaded guilty. On April 5, 1974, former Nixon appointments secretary Dwight Chapin was convicted of lying to the grand jury. Two days later, the Watergate grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.
Nixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious, and the House of Representatives began formal investigations into the possible impeachment of the president. The House Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 on July 27, 1974 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the president: obstruction of justice. The second (abuse of power) and third (contempt of Congress) articles were passed on July 29, 1974 and July 30, 1974, respectively.
The "Smoking Gun" tape
On August 5, 1974, the previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972, was released. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented Nixon and Haldeman meeting in the Oval Office and formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved. Haldeman introduces the topic as follows: "...the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the--in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have... their investigation is now leading into some productive areas [...] and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go." After explaining how the money from CRP was traced to the burglars, Haldeman explained to Nixon the coverup plan: "the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, 'Stay the hell out of this ...this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.'" President Nixon approved the plan, and he is given more information about the involvement of his campaign in the break-in, telling Haldeman: "All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest." Returning to the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI, he instructs Haldeman: "You call them in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it." [25]
Prior to the release of this tape, President Nixon had denied political motivations in his instructions to the CIA, and claimed he had no knowledge prior to March 21, 1973 of any involvement by senior campaign officials such as John Mitchell. The contents of this tape persuaded President Nixon's own lawyers, Fred Buzhardt and James St. Clair, "The tape proved that the President had lied to the nation, to his closest aides, and to his own lawyers – for more than two years." [26] The tape, which was referred to as a "smoking gun", hampered Nixon politically. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the committee announced that they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House.
Resignation
Throughout this time, Nixon still denied any involvement in the ordeal. However, after being told by key Republican Senators that enough votes existed to remove him, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on the evening of August 8, 1974, the president said,
In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future....
I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.
I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
The morning that his resignation was to take effect, President and Mrs. Nixon and their family bade farewell to the White House staff in the East Room.[29] A helicopter took him from the White House to Andrews Air Force base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he remembered thinking "As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?..." At Andrews, he boarded Air Force One to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California and then to his home in San Clemente.
Pardon and aftermath
Though President Nixon's resignation prompted Congress to drop the impeachment proceedings, criminal prosecution was still a possibility. Nixon was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford, who on September 8, 1974, issued a full and unconditional pardon of President Nixon, immunizing him from prosecution for any crimes he had "committed or may have committed or taken part in" as President.[30] In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interest of the country and that the Nixon family's situation "is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."[31]
Nixon proclaimed his innocence until his death in 1994. He did state in his official response to the pardon that he "was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy."
The Nixon pardon has been argued to be a factor in President Ford's loss of the presidential election of 1976.[32] Accusations of a secret deal made with Ford, promising a pardon in return for Nixon's resignation, led Ford to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on October 17, 1974.[33][34]
In his autobiography A Time to Heal, Ford wrote about a meeting he had with Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. He could try to ride out the impeachment and fight against conviction in the Senate all the way, or he could resign. His options for resigning were to delay his resignation until further along in the impeachment process to try and settle for a censure vote in Congress, or pardon himself and then resign. Haig then told Ford that some of Nixon's staff suggested that Nixon could agree to resign in return for an agreement that Ford would pardon him.
Haig emphasized that these weren't his suggestions. He didn't identify the staff members and he made it very clear that he wasn't recommending any one option over another. What he wanted to know was whether or not my overall assessment of the situation agreed with his.[emphasis in original]... Next he asked if I had any suggestions as to courses of actions for the President. I didn't think it would be proper for me to make any recommendations at all, and I told him so.
—Gerald Ford, [35]
Charles Colson pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Daniel Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of the Committee to Re-elect the President was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974, and on January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman entered prison in 1976, followed by the other two in 1977.
The effect on the upcoming Senate election and House race, only three months later, was significant. The Democrats gained five seats in the Senate and 49 in the House. Watergate was also indirectly responsible for changes in campaign financing. It was a driving factor in amending the Freedom of Information Act in 1974, as well as laws requiring new financial disclosures by key government officials, such as the Ethics in Government Act. While not legally required, other types of personal disclosure, such as releasing recent income tax forms, became expected. Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt had recorded many of their conversations, but after Watergate this practice purportedly ended.
Also, Congress investigated the scope of the President's actual legal powers, and belatedly realized that the United States had been in a continuous open-ended state of emergency since 1950, which led to the enactment of the National Emergencies Act in 1976.
The Watergate scandal left such an impression on the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix "-gate".
According to Thomas J. Johnson, professor of journalism at Southern Illinois University, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger boldly predicted during Nixon's final days that history would remember Nixon as a great president and that Watergate would be relegated to a "minor footnote." [36]
Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession.[37][38][39] In order to defuse public demand for direct federal regulation of lawyers (as opposed to leaving it in the hands of state bar associations or courts), the American Bar Association (ABA) launched two major reforms. First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure and replaced it with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in 1983.[40] The MRPC have been adopted in part or in whole by 48 states. Its preamble contains an emphatic reminder to young lawyers that the legal profession can remain self-governing only if lawyers behave properly. Second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional responsibility (which means they must study the MRPC). The requirement remains in effect.
Purpose of the break-in
Despite the enormous impact of the Watergate scandal, the actual purpose of the break-in of the DNC offices has never been conclusively established. Some theories suggest that the burglars were after specific information. The likeliest of these theories suggests that the target of the break-in was the offices of Larry O'Brien, the Chairman of the DNC.[41] In 1968, O'Brien was appointed by Vice President Hubert Humphrey to serve as the national director of Humphrey's presidential campaign and, separately, by Howard Hughes, to serve as Hughes' public-policy lobbyist in Washington. O'Brien was elected national chairman of the DNC in 1968 and 1970. With the upcoming Presidential election, former Howard Hughes business associate John H. Meier, working with Hubert Humphrey and others, wanted to feed misinformation to Richard Nixon. John Meier's father had been a German agent during World War II. Meier had joined the FBI and in the 60s had contracted to the CIA to eliminate Fidel Castro using Mafia bosses Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante.[42] In late 1971, the President’s brother, Donald Nixon, was collecting intelligence for his brother at the time and was asking Meier about Larry O'Brien. In 1956, Donald Nixon had borrowed $205,000 from Howard Hughes and never repaid the loan. The fact of the loan surfaced during the 1960 presidential election campaign embarrassing Richard Nixon and became a real political liability. According to author Donald M. Bartlett, Richard Nixon would do whatever was necessary to prevent another Hughes-Nixon family embarrassment.[43] From 1968 to 1970, Hughes withdrew nearly half a million dollars from the Texas National Bank of Commerce for contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, including presidential candidates Humphrey and Nixon. Hughes wanted Donald Nixon and Meier involved but Richard Nixon was opposed to their involvement.[44]
Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released, and that Larry O’Brien had the information,[45] (O’Brien who had received $25,000 from Hughes didn’t actually have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think he did). It is only a question of conjecture then that Donald called his brother Richard and told him that Meier gave the Democrats all the Hughes information that could destroy him and that O’Brien had the proof.[46] The fact is Larry O'Brien, elected Democratic Party Chairman, was also a lobbyist for Howard Hughes in a Democratic controlled Congress and the possibility of his finding about Hughes illegal contributions to the Nixon campaign was too much of a danger for Nixon to ignore and O'Brien's office at Watergate became a target of Nixon's intelligence in the political campaign.[47] This theory has been proposed as a motivation for the break-in.
Numerous theories have persisted in claiming deeper significance to the Watergate scandal than that commonly acknowledged by media and historians:
• In the book The Ends of Power, Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman claimed that the term "Bay of Pigs", mentioned by Nixon in a tape-recorded White House conversation as the reason the CIA should put a stop to the Watergate investigations,[2] was used by Nixon as a coded reference to a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro during the John F. Kennedy administration. The CIA had not disclosed this plot to the Warren Commission, the commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, despite the fact that it would attribute a motive to Castro in the assassination.[48] Any such revelation would also expose CIA/Mafia connections that could lead to unwanted scrutiny of suspected CIA/Mafia participants in the assassination of the president. Furthermore, Nixon's awareness as vice-president of the Bay of Pigs plan and his own ties to the underworld and unsavory intelligence operations might come to light. A theoretical connection between the Kennedy assassination and the Watergate Tapes was later referred to in the biopic, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone.
• Silent Coup, is a bestselling 1992 book written by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin in which they contend that former Nixon White House counsel John Dean orchestrated the 1972 Watergate burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters to protect his future wife, Maureen Biner, by removing information linking her to a call-girl (prostitute) ring that worked for the DNC. The authors also argued that Alexander Haig was not Deep Throat but was a key source for Bob Woodward, who as a Naval officer had briefed Haig at the White House in 1969 and 1970.[49][50]
• Secret Honor by Stone and Freed implies that Nixon deliberately sacrificed his presidency to save democracy from a plan to implement martial law. The theory uses the construct of "Yankees" vs. "Cowboys" to suggest that, since the postwar era, the United States has been dominated by Yankees competing with Cowboys. Nixon, who hailed from the Southwest, was initially backed by the military industrial defense contractor power-brokers (the Cowboys); however, he later wanted to jump ship and return government to the east-coast establishment of Yankees. His resignation accomplished this because Nelson Rockefeller, the epitome of the eastern economic elite, assumed the vice presidency after Nixon's resignation.
• Peter Beter's Conspiracy Against the Dollar further explains how Nixon was possibly a rogue liberal with a conservative mask.
• Gordon Novel, a man known for several controversial investigations, has claimed Watergate served as a discourse to stop the Nixon administration to hold Senate hearings about a postmortem on the Vietnam war.[51]
• Political scientist George Friedman argued that: "The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn't what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat's identity" and that FBI under the direction of Mark Felt must have began spying on the White House before the Watergate break-in.[52] In fact Felt was later revealed to have been the Post's source known as "Deep Throat."
• MIT professor Noam Chomsky argued that it was Nixon's dismantling of the Bretton Woods system that made him an enemy of multinational corporations and international bankers.[53]
New Nixon Library Museum exhibit stalled
A "searing" exhibit on the scandal at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California prepared by the National Archives was supposed to have opened July 1, 2010. The exhibit had not opened by August 9 because of objections from the Nixon Foundation, "a group of Nixon loyalists who controlled the museum until the Archives took it over" in 2007. A room for the new exhibit sits largely empty at the Museum. "Bob Bostock, a former Nixon aide who designed the original Watergate exhibit and has been enlisted by the foundation to challenge the installation, filed a 132-page letter of objection to the archives [a month after the scheduled opening date], claiming that the [new] exhibit lacked the context needed to help young visitors learning about Watergate to understand exactly what Nixon did. ... 'It is the last fight over Watergate,' said Timothy Naftali, the director of the museum .... Mr. Naftali has overseen the release of a flood of Nixon papers and tapes since ... 2006. [and said] he was confident a resolution could be worked out that addressed at least some of the concerns of both sides." Mr. Bostock said he'd worked for the former president during the last five years of Nixon's life and worked with him on the original Watergate exhibit, now removed, in the museum. Bostock also "questioned whether [Nixon's] misdeeds justified [his] being forced from the White House." Jon Wiener, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, who would take his classes to the museum on annual field trips as it studied Nixon, said of the previous exhibit, "It was a long dark tunnel that was completely uninviting, block ... after block of small panels, white text on a black wall. It had to go."[54] An extensive online background to the exhibit, with some 150 oral histories and tape snippets, along with pictures of some 30 principals, has been posted by the museum.[55]
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Ten Tips for a Better Interview
1. Be prepared! Always read up on the subject you are reporting about and the person you are interviewing. Your source will appreciate your effort, and you will be able to skip questions that can be answered by an assistant, book or document. When scheduling the appointment, ask your source to suggest documents or other sources of information about the topic you will discuss. The interviewee will appreciate your interest and often share valuable documents before the interview. Make sure your tape recorder has batteries that work. Bring an extra tape as well as pens and notebook.
2. Set the rules of the interview right up front! Be sure your subject understands the story you are working on (this will help keep the interview on track). Additionally, the interviewee must understand that everything they say is "on the record." It is best to establish these ground rules when making the interview appointment. Although most government officials have enough experience with the media to indicate when something is "off-the record" or "on background," other experts may not understand the differences. Remember that an upfront clarification may be required (especially when your source's job or life could be endangered by being quoted).3. Be on time! The worst impression you can make on a source is being late for the interview.
4. Be observant! Observe details of the place and of your interviewing partner; this can add color to your story. If you are interviewing people in their home or office, be sure to get a good look around and note what you see. For example, they may have some old photos that show them in a more personal light. You may start an interview with assumptions about a person and leave with a completely different impression. However, this may be exactly what your source intended. Perception is a tricky business! Try to talk to others, colleagues or friends of your source, to get a bigger picture.5. Be polite. Don't rush your source! It is important to establish a polite rapport and a level of comfort for the interviewee. Some interviewees, on the other hand, need a couple minutes to become comfortable talking to reporters. Even though you may only have 30 minutes for an interview, you should not rush your subject. If you sense the interviewee is in a hurry, adjust your timing accordingly. Keep in mind, everyone is different. Taking the time to get to know your sources will prove valuable, especially when you need to call with follow-up questions or use them as a source for future stories. If the interview goes well, it may even go beyond the scheduled time. Give yourself plenty of time between appointments to avoid scheduling conflicts
6. Listen but don't be afraid to interrupt when you don't understand! Keep your audience in mind! One reason you are conducting this interview is to explain it to your readers. If your subject uses scientific jargon or explanations only his/her peers would understand, politely interrupt and ask for further explanation. Never be embarrassed about not knowing something
7. Silence is golden. Sooner or later you will have to ask the tough questions that your subject may be loath to discuss. When you start asking those provocative questions, the answers most likely will be short, useless or carefully worded. You may not get an answer at all. If this occurs, look your source in the eye and don't say a word. In most cases, your opponent will begin to feel uncomfortable and begin to share information again. If this doesn't work, ask for sources who might be able to answer your question.
8. Maintain eye contact! A reporter who spends most of the interview bent over taking notes or looking into a notebook can be as disconcerting as a tape recorder in an interviewee's face. While taking notes and recording the interview, maintain as much eye contact as possible. Learn to take abbreviated notes looking down only once in a while so you can focus on your interviewee. This will make the interview more like a conversation, and enable everyone to be more relaxed.
9. Before your leave... ask your source if there is anything that you might have forgotten to ask. Perhaps the interviewee is burning to tell you useful information, but you did not even think to ask that question. Don't leave without getting a contact number or e-mail address and a good time to call with follow-up questions. Always ask for other sources. Colleagues or friends of the interviewee may be more knowledgeable or willing and able to speak to you. Thank your source for spending time talking with you before you leave.
10. Review your notes right after the interview! Don't wait until the end of the day or later in the week to review your notes. Go over them right away, while everything is fresh in your mind, filling in your shorthand and elaborating on your observations. Skip that date for drinks with your office pals until after you have reviewed and organized your notes.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
History of communication
The history of communication dates back to the earliest signs of life. Communication can range from very subtle processes of exchange, to full conversations and mass communication. Human communication was revolutionized with speech perhaps 200,000 years ago[citation needed]. Symbols were developed about 30,000 years ago[citation needed], and writing about 7,000. On a much shorter scale, there have been major developments in the field of telecommunication in the past few centuries.
Speech
Ronald Reagan speaking by the Berlin Wall (Tear down this wall), an example of transmission of older media (public speaking) with new mass media (television, Internet).
Evolution of the brain differentiated humans from animals, as among other things it allowed humans to master a very efficient form of communication - speech. A mutation of the FOXP2 gene, which occurred in homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago, was likely responsible for much of this change.
Speech greatly facilitated the transmission of information and knowledge to further generations. Experiences passed on through speech became increasingly rich, and allowed humans to adapt themselves to new environments - or adapt the environments to themselves - much more quickly than was possible before; in effect, biological human evolution was overtaken by technological progress and sociocultural evolution. Speech meant easier coordination and cooperation, technological progress and development of complex, abstract concepts such as religion or science. Speech placed humans at the top of the food chain, and facilitated human colonization of the entire planet.
Speech, however, is not perfect. The human voice carries only so far, and sign language is also rather limited in terms of distance. Further, all such forms of communications relied on human memory, another imperfect tool: memory can become corrupted or lost over time, and there is a limit to how much one can remember. With the accidental death of a 'wise man' or tribal elder, a pre-literate tribe could lose many generations of knowledge.
Symbols
The imperfection of speech, which nonetheless allowed easier dissemination of ideas and stimulated inventions, eventually resulted in the creation of new forms of communications, improving both the range at which people could communicate and the longevity of the information. All of those inventions were based on the key concept of the symbol: a conventional representation of a concept.
Cave paintings
For more details on this topic, see Cave paintings.
The oldest known symbols created with the purpose of communication through time are the cave paintings, a form of rock art, dating to the Upper Paleolithic. Just as the small child first learns to draw before it masters more complex forms of communication, so homo sapiens' first attempts at passing information through time took the form of paintings. The oldest known cave painting is that of the Chauvet Cave, dating to around 30,000 BC.[1] Though not well standardized, those paintings contained increasing amounts of information: Cro-Magnon people may have created the first calendar as far back as 15,000 years ago.[2] The connection between drawing and writing is further shown by linguistics: in the Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece the concepts and words of drawing and writing were one and the same (Egyptian: 's-sh', Greek: 'graphein').[3]
Petroglyphs
The next step in the history of communications is petroglyphs, carvings into a rock surface. It took about 20,000 years for homo sapiens to move from the first cave paintings to the first petroglyphs, which are dated to around 10,000 BC.[4]
It is possible that the humans of that time used some other forms of communication, often for mnemonic purposes - specially arranged stones, symbols carved in wood or earth, quipu-like ropes, tattoos, but little other than the most durable carved stones has survived to modern times and we can only speculate about their existence based on our observation of still existing 'hunter-gatherer' cultures such as those of Africa or Oceania.[4]
Pictograms
A pictogram (pictograph) is a symbol representing a concept, object, activity, place or event by illustration. Pictography is a form of proto-writing whereby ideas are transmitted through drawing. Pictographs were the next step in the evolution of communication: the most important difference between petroglyphs and pictograms is that petroglyphs are simply showing an event, but pictograms are telling a story about the event, thus they can for example be ordered in chronological order.
Pictograms were used by various ancient cultures all over the world since around 9000 BC, when tokens marked with simple pictures began to be used to label basic farm produce, and become increasingly popular around 6000-5000 BC.
They were the basis of cuneiform[2] and hieroglyphs, and began to develop into logographic writing systems around 5000 BC.
Ideograms
Pictograms, in turn, evolved into ideograms, graphical symbols that represent an idea. Their ancestors, the pictograms, could represent only something resembling their form: therefore a pictogram of a circle could represent a sun, but not concepts like 'heat', 'light', 'day' or 'Great God of the Sun'. Ideograms, on the other hand, could convey more abstract concepts, so that for example an ideogram of two sticks can mean not only 'legs' but also a verb 'to walk'.
Because some ideas are universal, many different cultures developed similar ideograms. For example an eye with a tear means 'sadness' in Native American ideograms in California, as it does for the Aztecs, the early Chinese and the Egyptians.
Ideograms were precursors of logographic writing systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese characters.
Examples of ideographical proto-writing systems, thought not to contain language-specific information, include the Vinca script (see also Tărtăria tablets) and the early Indus script. In both cases there are claims of decipherment of linguistic content, without wide acceptance.
Writing
The oldest-known forms of writing were primarily logographic in nature, based on pictographic and ideographic elements. Most writing systems can be broadly divided into three categories: logographic, syllabic and alphabetic (or segmental); however, all three may be found in any given writing system in varying proportions, often making it difficult to categorise a system uniquely.
The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the late Neolithic of the late 4th millennium BC. The first writing system is generally believed to have been invented in pre-historic Sumer and developed by the late 3rd millennium into cuneiform. Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the undeciphered Proto-Elamite writing system and Indus Valley script also date to this era, though a few scholars have questioned the Indus Valley script's status as a writing system.
The original Sumerian writing system was derived from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced about 2700-2000 BC by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but developed to include phonetic elements by the 2800 BC. About 2600 BC cuneiform began to represent syllables of spoken Sumerian language. Finally, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. By the 26th century BC, this script had been adapted to another Mesopotamian language, Akkadian, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.
The Chinese script may have originated independently of the Middle Eastern scripts, around the 16th century BC (early Shang Dynasty), out of a late neolithic Chinese system of proto-writing dating back to c. 6000 BC. The pre-Columbian writing systems of the Americas (including among others Olmec and Mayan) are also generally believed to have had independent origins, although some experts have noticed similarities between Olmec writing and Shang writing that seem to suggest that Mesoamerican writing was imported from China [3].
Alphabet
The first pure alphabets (properly, "abjads", mapping single symbols to single phonemes, but not necessarily each phoneme to a symbol) emerged around 2000 BC in Ancient Egypt, but by then alphabetic principles had already been incorporated into Egyptian hieroglyphs for a millennium (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets).
By 2700 BC Egyptian writing had a set of some 22 hieroglyphs to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for logograms, to write grammatical inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names.
However, although seemingly alphabetic in nature, the original Egyptian uniliterals were not a system and were never used by themselves to encode Egyptian speech. In the Middle Bronze Age an apparently "alphabetic" system is thought by some to have been developed in central Egypt around 1700 BC for or by Semitic workers, but we cannot read these early writings and their exact nature remain open to interpretation.
Over the next five centuries this Semitic "alphabet" (really a syllabary like Phoenician writing) seems to have spread north. All subsequent alphabets around the world with the sole exception of Korean Hangul have either descended from it, or been inspired by one of its descendants. (Source Wikipedia)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
How to Write a Great Lede
What Is the Lead?
The lead (that’s how journalists spell it) is the first paragraph of any news story. It’s also the most important. The lede must accomplish several things:
give readers the main points of the story
get readers interested in reading the story
accomplish both “a” and “b” in as few words as possible
Typically editors want ledes to be no longer than 35-40 words. Why so short? Readers want their news delivered quickly. A short lede does just that.
What Goes in the Lede?Journalists use the five “W’s and the H” – Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.
Who – who is the story about?
What – what is the story about?
Where – where did the event you’re writing about occur?
When – when did it occur?
Why – why did this happen?
How – how did this happen?
Example:Let’s say you’re writing a story about a man who was injured when he fell off a ladder. Here are your five W’s and H:
Who – the man
What – he fell off a ladder while painting
Where – at his house
When – yesterday
Why – the ladder was rickety
How – the rickety ladder broke
So your lede might go something like this:
A man was injured yesterday when he fell off a rickety ladder that collapsed while he was painting his house.
The lead (that’s how journalists spell it) is the first paragraph of any news story. It’s also the most important. The lede must accomplish several things:
give readers the main points of the story
get readers interested in reading the story
accomplish both “a” and “b” in as few words as possible
Typically editors want ledes to be no longer than 35-40 words. Why so short? Readers want their news delivered quickly. A short lede does just that.
What Goes in the Lede?Journalists use the five “W’s and the H” – Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.
Who – who is the story about?
What – what is the story about?
Where – where did the event you’re writing about occur?
When – when did it occur?
Why – why did this happen?
How – how did this happen?
Example:Let’s say you’re writing a story about a man who was injured when he fell off a ladder. Here are your five W’s and H:
Who – the man
What – he fell off a ladder while painting
Where – at his house
When – yesterday
Why – the ladder was rickety
How – the rickety ladder broke
So your lede might go something like this:
A man was injured yesterday when he fell off a rickety ladder that collapsed while he was painting his house.
The History of Communication
TIMELINE
BC
3500 BCto 2900 BC
The Phoenicians develop an alphabet.The Sumerians develop cuneiform writing - pictographs of accounts written on clay tablets.The Egyptians develop hieroglyphic writing.
1775 BC
Greeks use a phonetic alphabet written from left to right.
1400 BC
Oldest record of writing in China on bones.
1270 BC
The first encyclopedia is written in Syria.
900 BC
The very first postal service - for government use in China.
776 BC
First recorded use of homing pigeons used to send message - the winner of the Olympic Games to the Athenians.
530 BC
The Greeks start the very first library.
500 BC to 170 BC
Papyrus rolls and early parchments made of dried reeds - first portable and light writing surfaces.
200 BCto 100 BC
Human messengers on foot or horseback common in Egypt and China with messenger relay stations built.Sometimes fire messages used from relay station to station instead of humans.
AD
14
Romans establish postal services.
37
Heliographs - first recorded use of mirrors to send messages by Roman Emperor Tiberius.
100
First bound books
105 BC
Tsai Lun of China invents paper as we know it.
305
First wooden printing presses invented in China - symbols carved on a wooden block.
1049
First movable type invented - clay - invented in China by Pi Sheng.
1450
Newspapers appear in Europe.
1455
Johannes Gutenberg invents a printing press with metal movable type.
1560
Camera Obscura invented - primitive image making.
1650
First daily newspaper - Leipzig.
1714
Englishmen, Henry Mill receives the first patent for a typewriter.
1793
Claude Chappe invents the first long-distance semaphore (visual or optical) telegraph line.
1814
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce achieves the first photographic image.
1821
Charles Wheatstone reproduces sound in a primitive sound box - the first microphone.
1831
Joseph Henry invents the first electric telegraph.
1835
Samuel Morse invents Morse code.
1843
Samuel Morse invents the first long distance electric telegraph line.Alexander Bain patents the first fax machine.
1861
United States starts the Pony Express for mail delivery.Coleman Sellers invents the Kinematoscope - a machine that flashed a series of still photographs onto a screen.
1867
American, Sholes the first successful and modern typewriter.
1876
Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph - an office copying machine.Alexander Graham Bell patents the electric telephone.Melvyl Dewey writes the Dewey Decimal System for ordering library books.
1877
Thomas Edison patents the phonograph - with a wax cylinder as recording medium.Eadweard Muybridge invents high speed photography - creating first moving pictures that captured motion.
1887
Emile Berliner invents the gramophone - a system of recording which could be used over and over again.
1888
George Eastman patents Kodak roll film camera.
1889
Almon Strowger patents the direct dial telephone or automatic telephone exchange.
1894
Guglielmo Marconi improves wireless telegraphy.
1898
First telephone answering machines.
1899
Valdemar Poulsen invents the first magnetic recordings - using magnetized steel tape as recording medium - the foundation for both mass data storage on disk and tape and the music recording industry.Loudspeakers invented.
1902
Guglielmo Marconi transmits radio signals from Cornwall to Newfoundland - the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean.
1904
First regular comic books.
1906
Lee Deforest invents the electronic amplifying tube or triode - this allowed all electronic signals to be amplified improving all electronic communications i.e. telephones and radios.
1910
Thomas Edison demonstrated the first talking motion picture.
1914
First cross continental telephone call made.
1916
First radios with tuners - different stations.
1923
The television or iconoscope (cathode-ray tube) invented by Vladimir Kosma Zworykin - first television camera.
1925
John Logie Baird transmits the first experimental television signal.
1926
Warner Brothers Studios invented a way to record sound separately from the film on large disks and synchronized the sound and motion picture tracks upon playback - an improvement on Thomas Edison's work.
1927
NBC starts two radio networks.CBS founded.First television broadcasts in England.Warner Brothers releases "The Jazz Singer" the first successful talking motion picture.
1930
Radio popularity spreads with the "Golden Age" of radio.First television broadcasts in the United States.Movietone system of recording film sound on an audio track right on the film invented.
1934
Joseph Begun invents the first tape recorder for broadcasting - first magnetic recording.
1938
Television broadcasts able to be taped and edited - rather than only live.
1939
Scheduled television broadcasts begin.
1944
Computers like Harvard's Mark I put into public service - government owned - the age of Information Science begins.
1948
Long playing record invented - vinyl and played at 33 rpm.Transistor invented - enabling the miniaturization of electronic devices.
1949
Network television starts in U.S.45 rpm record invented.
1951
Computers are first sold commercially.
1958
Chester Carlson invents the photocopier or Xerox machine.Integrated Circuit invented - enabling the further miniaturization of electronic devices and computers.
1963
Zip codes invented in the United States.
1966
Xerox invents the Telecopier - the first successful fax machine.
1969
ARPANET - the first Internet started.
1971
The computer floppy disc invented.The microprocessor invented - considered a computer on a chip.
1972
HBO invents pay-TV service for cable.
1976
Apple I home computer invented.First nationwide programming - via satellite and implemented by Ted Turner.
1979
First cellular phone communication network started in Japan..
1980
Sony Walkman invented.
1981
IBM PC first sold.First laptop computers sold to public.Computer mouse becomes regular part of computer.
1983
Time magazines names the computer as "Man of the Year."First cellular phone network started in the United States.
1984
Apple Macintosh released.IBM PC AT released.
1985
Cellular telephones in cars become wide-spread.CD-ROMs in computers.
1994
American government releases control of internet and WWW is born - making communication at lightspeed.
BC
3500 BCto 2900 BC
The Phoenicians develop an alphabet.The Sumerians develop cuneiform writing - pictographs of accounts written on clay tablets.The Egyptians develop hieroglyphic writing.
1775 BC
Greeks use a phonetic alphabet written from left to right.
1400 BC
Oldest record of writing in China on bones.
1270 BC
The first encyclopedia is written in Syria.
900 BC
The very first postal service - for government use in China.
776 BC
First recorded use of homing pigeons used to send message - the winner of the Olympic Games to the Athenians.
530 BC
The Greeks start the very first library.
500 BC to 170 BC
Papyrus rolls and early parchments made of dried reeds - first portable and light writing surfaces.
200 BCto 100 BC
Human messengers on foot or horseback common in Egypt and China with messenger relay stations built.Sometimes fire messages used from relay station to station instead of humans.
AD
14
Romans establish postal services.
37
Heliographs - first recorded use of mirrors to send messages by Roman Emperor Tiberius.
100
First bound books
105 BC
Tsai Lun of China invents paper as we know it.
305
First wooden printing presses invented in China - symbols carved on a wooden block.
1049
First movable type invented - clay - invented in China by Pi Sheng.
1450
Newspapers appear in Europe.
1455
Johannes Gutenberg invents a printing press with metal movable type.
1560
Camera Obscura invented - primitive image making.
1650
First daily newspaper - Leipzig.
1714
Englishmen, Henry Mill receives the first patent for a typewriter.
1793
Claude Chappe invents the first long-distance semaphore (visual or optical) telegraph line.
1814
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce achieves the first photographic image.
1821
Charles Wheatstone reproduces sound in a primitive sound box - the first microphone.
1831
Joseph Henry invents the first electric telegraph.
1835
Samuel Morse invents Morse code.
1843
Samuel Morse invents the first long distance electric telegraph line.Alexander Bain patents the first fax machine.
1861
United States starts the Pony Express for mail delivery.Coleman Sellers invents the Kinematoscope - a machine that flashed a series of still photographs onto a screen.
1867
American, Sholes the first successful and modern typewriter.
1876
Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph - an office copying machine.Alexander Graham Bell patents the electric telephone.Melvyl Dewey writes the Dewey Decimal System for ordering library books.
1877
Thomas Edison patents the phonograph - with a wax cylinder as recording medium.Eadweard Muybridge invents high speed photography - creating first moving pictures that captured motion.
1887
Emile Berliner invents the gramophone - a system of recording which could be used over and over again.
1888
George Eastman patents Kodak roll film camera.
1889
Almon Strowger patents the direct dial telephone or automatic telephone exchange.
1894
Guglielmo Marconi improves wireless telegraphy.
1898
First telephone answering machines.
1899
Valdemar Poulsen invents the first magnetic recordings - using magnetized steel tape as recording medium - the foundation for both mass data storage on disk and tape and the music recording industry.Loudspeakers invented.
1902
Guglielmo Marconi transmits radio signals from Cornwall to Newfoundland - the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean.
1904
First regular comic books.
1906
Lee Deforest invents the electronic amplifying tube or triode - this allowed all electronic signals to be amplified improving all electronic communications i.e. telephones and radios.
1910
Thomas Edison demonstrated the first talking motion picture.
1914
First cross continental telephone call made.
1916
First radios with tuners - different stations.
1923
The television or iconoscope (cathode-ray tube) invented by Vladimir Kosma Zworykin - first television camera.
1925
John Logie Baird transmits the first experimental television signal.
1926
Warner Brothers Studios invented a way to record sound separately from the film on large disks and synchronized the sound and motion picture tracks upon playback - an improvement on Thomas Edison's work.
1927
NBC starts two radio networks.CBS founded.First television broadcasts in England.Warner Brothers releases "The Jazz Singer" the first successful talking motion picture.
1930
Radio popularity spreads with the "Golden Age" of radio.First television broadcasts in the United States.Movietone system of recording film sound on an audio track right on the film invented.
1934
Joseph Begun invents the first tape recorder for broadcasting - first magnetic recording.
1938
Television broadcasts able to be taped and edited - rather than only live.
1939
Scheduled television broadcasts begin.
1944
Computers like Harvard's Mark I put into public service - government owned - the age of Information Science begins.
1948
Long playing record invented - vinyl and played at 33 rpm.Transistor invented - enabling the miniaturization of electronic devices.
1949
Network television starts in U.S.45 rpm record invented.
1951
Computers are first sold commercially.
1958
Chester Carlson invents the photocopier or Xerox machine.Integrated Circuit invented - enabling the further miniaturization of electronic devices and computers.
1963
Zip codes invented in the United States.
1966
Xerox invents the Telecopier - the first successful fax machine.
1969
ARPANET - the first Internet started.
1971
The computer floppy disc invented.The microprocessor invented - considered a computer on a chip.
1972
HBO invents pay-TV service for cable.
1976
Apple I home computer invented.First nationwide programming - via satellite and implemented by Ted Turner.
1979
First cellular phone communication network started in Japan..
1980
Sony Walkman invented.
1981
IBM PC first sold.First laptop computers sold to public.Computer mouse becomes regular part of computer.
1983
Time magazines names the computer as "Man of the Year."First cellular phone network started in the United States.
1984
Apple Macintosh released.IBM PC AT released.
1985
Cellular telephones in cars become wide-spread.CD-ROMs in computers.
1994
American government releases control of internet and WWW is born - making communication at lightspeed.
The art of news writing
News writing is a key skill for journalists, but it helps with other types of writing as well. That’s because news writing is about telling a story quickly and concisely. Anyone can learn to do this, with a bit of help. Here’s how you can write the news and get your story across. The technique also works well for writing press releases.
News Writing Structure
News writing has its own structure. It’s called the inverted pyramid. This upside down triangle serves as a guide for how you include information in the story. Using the inverted pyramid means starting with the most important information, then putting the next most important info and so on. It can also serve as a guide for writing each paragraph in the story. Start with the most important point, then the next most important and so on.
The inverted pyramid has an interesting history. Before digital printing and desktop publishing, news was laid out manually. If a late breaking story came in and the editor needed to make room, then the editor would order another story to be cut. Having the most important information at the top meant that readers always got the essential parts of the story.
Writing The Facts
Another way to think of the inverted pyramid is that you start with the facts and then add the background. So, how do you know what background to add? It’s easy. You can use the 6Ws. Strictly speaking, there aren’t six Ws, there are actually 5Ws and 1H, but the formula seems to work. That mnemonic reminds us to include the who, where, what, why, when and how of a story.
Why is this? Think about how you tell a story to your friends. You might say: ‘You’ll never believe WHO I just saw!’ Then you might go on to tell the story of where the person was, what they were doing, and why it’s scandalous. We all want to hear about people – and that’s what news is about? Look at any news story and you will see that all of this information is in the first two paragraphs. Anything after that is background to the story.
Let me give another example. If I were writing about a car crash, I would say who was involved, when and where it happened, why it happened and how it happened. Those would be the main points and my story might look something like this:
Two people sustained serious injuries in a car crash at Hill Road at 6am today. The collision happened when Mr. Smith swerved into the opposite lane to avoid a dog in the road. Ms Jones, who was in that lane, was unable to stop in time. Both Mr. Smith and Ms Jones have been taken to the local hospital.
This is not a perfect example, but you get the idea – and now you can write the news too
News Writing Structure
News writing has its own structure. It’s called the inverted pyramid. This upside down triangle serves as a guide for how you include information in the story. Using the inverted pyramid means starting with the most important information, then putting the next most important info and so on. It can also serve as a guide for writing each paragraph in the story. Start with the most important point, then the next most important and so on.
The inverted pyramid has an interesting history. Before digital printing and desktop publishing, news was laid out manually. If a late breaking story came in and the editor needed to make room, then the editor would order another story to be cut. Having the most important information at the top meant that readers always got the essential parts of the story.
Writing The Facts
Another way to think of the inverted pyramid is that you start with the facts and then add the background. So, how do you know what background to add? It’s easy. You can use the 6Ws. Strictly speaking, there aren’t six Ws, there are actually 5Ws and 1H, but the formula seems to work. That mnemonic reminds us to include the who, where, what, why, when and how of a story.
Why is this? Think about how you tell a story to your friends. You might say: ‘You’ll never believe WHO I just saw!’ Then you might go on to tell the story of where the person was, what they were doing, and why it’s scandalous. We all want to hear about people – and that’s what news is about? Look at any news story and you will see that all of this information is in the first two paragraphs. Anything after that is background to the story.
Let me give another example. If I were writing about a car crash, I would say who was involved, when and where it happened, why it happened and how it happened. Those would be the main points and my story might look something like this:
Two people sustained serious injuries in a car crash at Hill Road at 6am today. The collision happened when Mr. Smith swerved into the opposite lane to avoid a dog in the road. Ms Jones, who was in that lane, was unable to stop in time. Both Mr. Smith and Ms Jones have been taken to the local hospital.
This is not a perfect example, but you get the idea – and now you can write the news too
Broadcast writing style tips
General rules of writing
1. The best way to learn broadcast style is to listen to radio deejays and television anchors/reporters.2. Write clearly. Read copy aloud to hear how it sounds.3. Use conversational style—simple and direct.4. Transitions are necessary, but pay close attention to how natural they sound in the broadcast.5. Use active voice.6. Emphasize the latest news of a continuing story, but give necessary background early to provide context for the story. The rule is that every story should stand on its own.7. Use present tense, but don’t belabor it. Not every story must sound as if it just happened moments before the newscast.8. Don’t cram too much information into the lead. The 5 W’s and H lead (from the print media) will confuse audience. Try for a softer lead with non-essential facts that get audience’s attention to the story but are not too complex.9. At the same time, don’t underestimate your audience and talk down to them.10. Keep sentences short (easier for broadcaster to say and easier for listener to follow) and economical (give necessary info in as few words as possible).11. Avoid highly technical words, professional jargon, clichés and obfuscation by bureaucrats.12. Avoid sexism in pronouns.13. Find the lead, then tell story chronologically.14. Answer logical questions, and if you don’t know the answer, say so but do not ignore the question.15. Use humor sparingly. Humor often muddles the distinction between a serious subject and a lighthearted one.II. Mechanics of style and grammar1. Contractions: Use them because that’s how we speak. Be careful when contracting "not"—n’t is not always discernible to the audience and can create serious miscommunication.2. "Says": In broadcast more than print it is necessary not to overuse a word. Some suggestions for replacement:acknowledge convey claimsadmit recount confirmdeclare state explain*note=see Be Careful entry below for warning against using in improper context.3. BE CAREFUL! The following words have more than one meaning and must not be used improperly:
accident= Accidents happen all the time, but so do intentional acts. Don’t predetermine cause by a haphazard word choice.admit= Other than meaning to grant entrance, the word means to concede or confess and implies acknowledgement of wrongdoing.claim= Claim means to demand or assert a right (generally used in legal context).elderly= This may be viewed as a negative. Use only for people 65 years of age and above—and even then, use carefully.ghetto= Don’t use lightly. This is a section of the city overwhelmingly inhabited by members of a minority group and/or a minority group that has been forced to live in that section.guerrilla, insurgent, rebel= Guerrilla fighters generally employ hit-and-run tactics; insurgents or rebels fight against the government generally and are more appropriate terms to use in most cases.illegal= Use only in reference to a violation of law.leftist, rightist, radical= Use more precise political descriptions. These are at best subjective terms as are conservative, left, right, moderate. Also, a radical wants upheaval of the existing government, so be particularly careful.sanction, sanctions= Sanction, as a verb or noun, means authoritative approval. Sanctions, as a noun, usually in international law, refers to efforts of one or more countries to force another to change some policy. When speaking, be sure to make the distinction clear.survey= Only use this word if there has been an actual survey.
4. Common problems. The following list represent some of the most misused, misunderstood or mispronounced words by broadcasters. Be sure to articulate words accurately so they cannot be misunderstood as another word with a different meaning. Also, make sure the word you say, is the one you mean!
accept, except= accept is to take; except is to excludeallude, refer= allude is to speak of something indirectly; refer is to speak of directlyallusion, illusion= allusion is a casual reference to something; illusion means to create a false impressionboycott, embargo= boycott involves an organized refusal to buy, use or participate in something; embargo involves a government-imposed restriction on tradedie, kill= all people eventually die; some people are killedemigrate, immigrate= emigrate means to leave a country to settle elsewhere; immigrate means to enter a country from the outside.ensure, insure= unless you’re speaking about insurance, the proper word is ensureirregardless= not a word, use regardless insteadrebut, refute= rebut means to argue against with evidence; refute means to prove wrongtoward= not towardswhether or not= should almost always be just whether
5. Names, titles, initials:a) Do not begin a sentence with an unknown name unless preceded by an identifying titleb) Drop middle and first initials from namesc) No courtesy titles (except for clarifications)d) Long, involved titles should follow a namee) Professional titles may be used on first reference6. Beware of personal pronouns. Make sure no doubt as to the reference.7. Attribution at the beginning of the sentence or as a break in the sentence, but never at the end.8. Direct quotes:a) Use phrases to tell reader of a direct quote (ie: The senator attacks what he calls—”Needless and irresponsible use of federal powers.”)b) Use sparinglyc) Avoid quotes with “I” or “we”d) Use neutral verbs—says, declares—to avoid editorial flavor where not indicated by speaker9. Make sure location of story is clear.Sources:UPI Stylebook, Third Edition: The Authoritative Handbook for Writers, Editors and News Directors. Lincolnwood, Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1992.Popper, Robert A. Broadcast News Writing Stylebook. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995. By Laurie Lattimore
1. The best way to learn broadcast style is to listen to radio deejays and television anchors/reporters.2. Write clearly. Read copy aloud to hear how it sounds.3. Use conversational style—simple and direct.4. Transitions are necessary, but pay close attention to how natural they sound in the broadcast.5. Use active voice.6. Emphasize the latest news of a continuing story, but give necessary background early to provide context for the story. The rule is that every story should stand on its own.7. Use present tense, but don’t belabor it. Not every story must sound as if it just happened moments before the newscast.8. Don’t cram too much information into the lead. The 5 W’s and H lead (from the print media) will confuse audience. Try for a softer lead with non-essential facts that get audience’s attention to the story but are not too complex.9. At the same time, don’t underestimate your audience and talk down to them.10. Keep sentences short (easier for broadcaster to say and easier for listener to follow) and economical (give necessary info in as few words as possible).11. Avoid highly technical words, professional jargon, clichés and obfuscation by bureaucrats.12. Avoid sexism in pronouns.13. Find the lead, then tell story chronologically.14. Answer logical questions, and if you don’t know the answer, say so but do not ignore the question.15. Use humor sparingly. Humor often muddles the distinction between a serious subject and a lighthearted one.II. Mechanics of style and grammar1. Contractions: Use them because that’s how we speak. Be careful when contracting "not"—n’t is not always discernible to the audience and can create serious miscommunication.2. "Says": In broadcast more than print it is necessary not to overuse a word. Some suggestions for replacement:acknowledge convey claimsadmit recount confirmdeclare state explain*note=see Be Careful entry below for warning against using in improper context.3. BE CAREFUL! The following words have more than one meaning and must not be used improperly:
accident= Accidents happen all the time, but so do intentional acts. Don’t predetermine cause by a haphazard word choice.admit= Other than meaning to grant entrance, the word means to concede or confess and implies acknowledgement of wrongdoing.claim= Claim means to demand or assert a right (generally used in legal context).elderly= This may be viewed as a negative. Use only for people 65 years of age and above—and even then, use carefully.ghetto= Don’t use lightly. This is a section of the city overwhelmingly inhabited by members of a minority group and/or a minority group that has been forced to live in that section.guerrilla, insurgent, rebel= Guerrilla fighters generally employ hit-and-run tactics; insurgents or rebels fight against the government generally and are more appropriate terms to use in most cases.illegal= Use only in reference to a violation of law.leftist, rightist, radical= Use more precise political descriptions. These are at best subjective terms as are conservative, left, right, moderate. Also, a radical wants upheaval of the existing government, so be particularly careful.sanction, sanctions= Sanction, as a verb or noun, means authoritative approval. Sanctions, as a noun, usually in international law, refers to efforts of one or more countries to force another to change some policy. When speaking, be sure to make the distinction clear.survey= Only use this word if there has been an actual survey.
4. Common problems. The following list represent some of the most misused, misunderstood or mispronounced words by broadcasters. Be sure to articulate words accurately so they cannot be misunderstood as another word with a different meaning. Also, make sure the word you say, is the one you mean!
accept, except= accept is to take; except is to excludeallude, refer= allude is to speak of something indirectly; refer is to speak of directlyallusion, illusion= allusion is a casual reference to something; illusion means to create a false impressionboycott, embargo= boycott involves an organized refusal to buy, use or participate in something; embargo involves a government-imposed restriction on tradedie, kill= all people eventually die; some people are killedemigrate, immigrate= emigrate means to leave a country to settle elsewhere; immigrate means to enter a country from the outside.ensure, insure= unless you’re speaking about insurance, the proper word is ensureirregardless= not a word, use regardless insteadrebut, refute= rebut means to argue against with evidence; refute means to prove wrongtoward= not towardswhether or not= should almost always be just whether
5. Names, titles, initials:a) Do not begin a sentence with an unknown name unless preceded by an identifying titleb) Drop middle and first initials from namesc) No courtesy titles (except for clarifications)d) Long, involved titles should follow a namee) Professional titles may be used on first reference6. Beware of personal pronouns. Make sure no doubt as to the reference.7. Attribution at the beginning of the sentence or as a break in the sentence, but never at the end.8. Direct quotes:a) Use phrases to tell reader of a direct quote (ie: The senator attacks what he calls—”Needless and irresponsible use of federal powers.”)b) Use sparinglyc) Avoid quotes with “I” or “we”d) Use neutral verbs—says, declares—to avoid editorial flavor where not indicated by speaker9. Make sure location of story is clear.Sources:UPI Stylebook, Third Edition: The Authoritative Handbook for Writers, Editors and News Directors. Lincolnwood, Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1992.Popper, Robert A. Broadcast News Writing Stylebook. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995. By Laurie Lattimore
'Hot 100' News Writing Tips
LEAD
1. Keep leads short. Those with 35 words or less are preferred.
2. Leads limited to one or two sentences are preferred.
3. Avoid starting leads with "when" or "where" unless the time or place is unusual. Most leads start with "who" or "what."
4. Avoid beginning leads with "there" or "this."
5. In leads about future events, the time, day (date) and place usually go at the end of the paragraph.
6. In leads about past events, the day (date) of the event usually appears before or after the verb. Sometimes the day (date) comes at the end of the first sentence or the paragraph if it is a one-sentence lead.
7. Use quote and question leads sparingly.
8. The first five to "what happened" makes a better story than the fact it did.
BODY
9. Keep paragraphs short. Those limited to 60 words or less or no longer than 10 typeset lines are preferred.
10. Paragraphs limited to one to three sentences are preferred.
11. Each paragraph should contain only one idea.
12. Remember short paragraphs encourage readers to continue reading.
EDITING
13. Eliminate the word "that" whenever possible.
14. For past events, report it happened "Friday," NOT "last Friday." Eliminate the word "last." For future events, report it will happen "Monday," NOT "next Monday." Eliminate the word "next."
15. Eliminate the "be" verb. Write "she will resign" instead of "she will be resigning. "Write in future tense (will) instead of future progressive tense (will be "ing").
16. Eliminate words such as "when asked" and "concluded." These are weak transitions. Just report what was said.
17. A long title should follow the name. A title that follows the name should be lowercased and set off in commas. Shorter titles that precede names should be capitalized.
18. Avoid the contractions of he'd and they'd. "He'd" can mean both "he had" and "he would," and "they'd" can mean both "they had" and "they would."
19. Always double-check the spelling of names.
20. Make sure numbers match the items listed.
21. Make sure "only" is placed properly in a sentence. The location of "only" can change the meaning of a sentence.
22. Write. Rewrite. Revise. Rewrite. Revise. Edit. Revise. Edit. Edit. The first version of a story is NOT good enough to go into print. Someone once said THERE IS NO GREAT WRITING, ONLY GREAT REWRITING.
23. Read the story out loud to catch awkward sentence constructions.
GRAMMAR
24. If "none" means "no one" or "not one," use a singular verb. Consult the AP Stylebook or Grammar for Journalists for more information. Example: None was found guilty.
25. When you use a pronoun to refer to a team or a group, the proper pronoun to use is "its," NOT they. Example: The team wants to improve its record.
26. Make sure verbs or other phrases are "parallel" or the same in structure when they appear in stories or list. Examples: He likes gardening, fishing and hunting. The fire killed at least 12 persons, injured 60 more and forced scores of residents to leap from windows.
27. Use THIRD PERSON (she, he, it, its, her, hers, him, his, they, them, their, theirs) in news stories. Only on rare occasions do you use first person (I, mine, we, our, ours) or second person (you, your, yours) in news stories.
28. When "either ... or" and "neither ... nor" are used, the verb agrees in person with the nearer subject. Examples: Neither the coach nor the players are to blame. Neither the players nor the coach is to blame.
29. Use active voice vs. passive voice. The passive voice is formed by using some form of the verb "be" with the past participle of an action verb: is shot, was shot, has been shot, had been shot, may be shot, will be shot. The word "by" may also signal the sentence is written in passive voice. Rewrite sentences to eliminate the word "by." Example: Passive voice ; The city was ordered by the judge to make the payment. Active voice ; The judge ordered the city to make the payment.
MISCELLANEOUS
30. When something isn't clear, make a drawing of it. Putting it on paper can clarify the situation.
31. WHEN IN DOUBT, LEAVE IT OUT. This has to do with questionable information that may be libelous, incomplete information and information the writer does not have a clear understanding of.
NONSEXIST, NONAGEIST, NONDISCRIMINATORY COMMUNICATION
32. Avoid words that reinforce ageist, racial and ethnic stereotypes.
33. Avoid racial identification except when it's essential to communication.
34. Substitute asexual words for "man" words or sexist words.
NO
YES
mankind .......................................................
people, humanity, human beings,
human race
man-made ....................................................
synthetic, artificial, manufactured,
of human origin
manpower ....................................................
workers, work force, staff, personnel
man-hours ....................................................
work hours
man-sized .....................................................
husky, sizable, large, requiring
exceptional ability
founding fathers ...........................................
pioneers, colonists, patriots, forebears
gentleman's agreement .................................
informational agreement or contract
for the man on the way up ............................
for the person or executive on
his or her way up
for the lady of the house ................................
for the homemaker or consumer or head
of the household
anchorman ....................................................
anchor
advertising man ............................................
advertising professional or practitioner
chairman .......................................................
chairperson
cleaning woman ............................................
housekeeper, custodian
Englishmen ...................................................
the English
fireman ...........................................................
firefighter
foreman ........................................................
supervisor
a man who ....................................................
someone who
man the exhibit ..............................................
run the exhibit, staff the exhibit
man of letters ................................................
writer
newsman ......................................................
reporter
postman ........................................................
letter carrier
policeman ....................................................
police officer
salesman .......................................................
salesperson
stewardess ....................................................
flight attendant
self-made man ..............................................
self-made person
weatherman ..................................................
meteorologist
workman ......................................................
worker
the girls (for women over 18) ......................
the women
the little lady, the better half ..........................
wife
girl Friday .....................................................
secretary, assistant, right hand
libber or women's lib ....................................
feminist, liberationist, women's movement
the ladies and the men ...................................
the women and the men, the ladies and
the gentlemen, the girls and the boys
(Note the parallelism in structures.)
man and wife ................................................
husband and wife
you and your wife .........................................
you and your spouse
coed (for female students at a
coeducational school) ...................................
student
ladylike .........................................................
well-mannered
housewife .....................................................
homemaker (for a person who manages a
home); in an economic sense, consumer,
customer or shopper
career girl or career woman .........................
refer to the woman's profession or
vocation ; Professor Jane Jones;
Kathy Smith, welder
35. Separate the person from the handicap. For more information, go to www.easter.seals.org/resources/press/tips.asp.
NO
YES
Mary, an epileptic, had no trouble
Mary, who had epilepsy, had no trouble
doing her job.
doing her job.
The handicapped parents met to
The parents, each with some handicap,
exchange ideas.
met to exchange ideas.
The deaf accountant spotted the error.
The accountant spotted the error.
36. Be respectful of persons with handicaps. For more information, go to www.easter.seals.org/resources/press/tips.asp
NO
YES
crippled .........................................................
impaired, limited, disabled or be specific -
paraplegic
deaf and dumb, deaf mute .............................
deaf, hearing and/or speech impaired
crazy, insane, dull, half-witted, retarded ........
mentally ill, developmentally
disadvantaged, disabled or limited, or
be specific - emotionally disturbed,
slow learner
fits, spells ......................................................
seizures, epilepsy
37. Use "he or she" or "she or he" for "he." If using "he or she" or "him or her" becomes cumbersome, consider using a plural pronoun ; "they," "them," "their" or "theirs." Plural pronouns, however, are weaker than singular ones.
ORGANIZATION
38. Make sure information introduced or outlined in the lead is covered in the same order in the body of the story.
39. Avoid introducing new information at the end of a story. All aspects of a story should usually be introduced or outlined in the first few paragraphs.
40. Transitions are necessary to show the reader that the writer has a sense of direction. A word, phrase, sentence or paragraph can move the reader from one thought to another.
PARTS OF SPEECH
41. Avoid using "like" for "as." "Like" is a preposition and takes a noun or pronoun object. "As" is a subordinate conjunction that introduces dependent clauses. Examples: It tastes like a peach. The one-time millionaire now works from dawn to dusk, as he did in his youth.
42. Most adverbs are unnecessary. Redundant adverbs weaken strong verbs. Instead of "tightly clenched teeth," write "clinched teeth." Instead of "the radio blared loudly," write "the radio blared."
43. Most adjectives are unnecessary. The concept is oftentimes already in the noun. Use adjectives sparingly.
44. Choose verbs that suggest what they mean. "Active" verbs add pace, clarity and vigor to writing. Verbs are a writer's most important tools. Avoid "be" verbs.
PUNCTUATION
45. Use a comma with "according to." Example: ... , according to the news release. According to John Jones, ... .
46. There is no comma between time, date and place. Example: The accident occurred at 4:32 a.m. Monday one-half block north of Central Dairy on Third Street South.
47. When in doubt about the use of a comma, leave it out.
48. Avoid comma splices and comma blunders. If a comma is placed between the subject (noun) and predicate (verb), it's called a "comma splice." Example: The Fountain of Youth, is not in Florida. (The comma is NOT needed.) If two independent clauses are joined by a comma, this is a "comma blunder" or "comma fault." Example: The Fountain of Youth is not in Florida, it's in Russia. (This is known as a run-on sentence. A period or a semicolon should replace the comma. If a period is used, the "i" on "it's" also needs to be capitalized.)
49. A comma should precede "such as," "especially" and "including" when these words introduce examples. Examples: The advertised price of the tour does not cover some personal expenses, such as laundry, entertainment and tips. He likes fruit, especially oranges. In newswriting, students study various approaches to writing, including the inverted pyramid, chronological, narrative, personalized and first-person. When "such as" is used with a restrictive application, the comma is omitted. Example: Magazines such as these should be thrown in the trash.
50. Quotation marks go outside commas (,") and periods (."). They go inside semicolons (";) and colons (":).
51. In a series, a comma is NOT needed before the "and." Example: red, white and blue.
52. The dash is a long mark (-- or ; ). There should be a space before and after the dash. The dash should be used before words and sentences run as lists.
53. The hyphen is a short mark ( - ) and is used to divide words or to link hyphenated adjectives. Don't hyphenate adverbs ending in "ly" with adjectives. Write "frequently misused words," NOT "frequently-misused words."
54. Use an exclamation point in only the rarest of situations and only after brief interjections. Exclamation points are "graphic tantrums" and sometimes demonstrate a lack of control on the writer's part. The order of the words in a sentence should be arranged in such a way that they make the desired impression. Let the reader decide if the content is humorous or exciting on his or her own.
QUOTES AND ATTRIBUTION
55. Use attribution only once per paragraph.
56. Attribution is needed when policy change statements are made, when opinions are expressed or when "professional" opinions from physicians, scientists, engineers and others are used. Attribution is also needed with direct quotations and indirect quotations (paraphrased information).
57. Attribution is NOT needed when facts are commonplace and not subject to dispute or when they are accepted and historically true.
58. Attribution is usually noun + verb. Example: Jones said. It may be verb + noun when the source's title follows his or her name. Example: ... ," said John Jones, chairman of the department of English.
59. Attribution should be placed at the end of the first sentence when the quote is made up of two or more sentences.
60. When one quote follows another but the second one is from a different source, attribution for the second quote should be placed at the beginning of it. This helps the reader know immediately that a different person is speaking.
61. "Said" is the best word for attribution. Other words can be used, but they should accurately represent how something is said.
62. Use past tense verbs (said vs. says) for attribution in news stories.
63. Let quotes begin the paragraph. Show them off. Quote marks attract the reader's eye. Use them to encourage the reader to continue reading.
64. Avoid the use of partial quotes. Quote or paraphrase material. Don't mix the two.
65. Each time a different source is cited, start a new paragraph.
SENTENCE STRUCTURE
66. Avoid using the same word twice in a sentence.
67. The optimum number of words to use in a sentence is 14 to 16. The average reader cannot comprehend a sentence with more than 40 words.
68. When writing becomes cumbersome, turn one long sentence into two or three shorter ones.
69. If a long sentence must be used, place a short sentence before and after it.
70. Don't have more than three consecutive prepositional phrases in a sentence. Prepositional phrases start with about, above, against, at, between, by, down, during, for, from, in, like, on, over, through, to, toward, under, up, until, upon, with ...
71. Count the words in a story's sentences. Sentence length should vary. Stories become dull when sentences are all the same length.
72. Don't start or end a sentence with "however." Start the sentence and then work "however" into it as soon as possible. This word is intended to cause an interruption in thought.
SPELLING
73. Use "Spell Check" on the computer.
74. Consult a dictionary. (Webster New World Dictionary is the preferred reference.)
75. Ask for help. Public library information desk personnel can be resourceful and helpful. Don't call university libraries for assistance.
STYLE
76. Consult the AP Stylebook and Libel Manual.
77. If the answer cannot be found in the AP Stylebook, consult a dictionary or a grammar book.
78. The order for writing when and where is time, day (date) and place.
79. Use the day of the week for six days before or after a specific day.
80. Use the date when it is seven or more days before or after a specific day.
81. On first reference, identify a person by his or her first and last names. On second reference, refer to the person by his or her last name only. On second and all other references, you don't need Miss, Mrs., Ms. or Mr. unless it's an obituary.
VOCABULARY
82. Use simple words. Never send the reader to the dictionary. Odds are the reader won't bother looking up the definition.
83. Words such as "thing" and "a lot" annoy some readers, bosses and executives. Avoid using them. (Note the correct spelling of "a lot.")
84. Be careful how the word "held" is used. Make sure the object can be "held" physically. Example: Weak ; The meeting will be held at noon Monday in Anthony Administration Building, Room 125. Better ; The meeting will be at noon Monday in ...
85. Avoid using words that qualify how someone feels, thinks or sees. "Little qualifiers" include the following: a bit, a little, sort of, kind of, rather, around, quite, very, pretty, much, in a very real sense, somewhat.
86. Avoid technical jargon unless 95 percent or more of the readers will understand it. If technical jargon is used and it won't be understood by the majority of readers, be sure to explain each term used.
87. Learn the difference between "affect" (usually a verb) and "effect" (usually a noun). Consult the AP Stylebook or a dictionary for more information.
88. Never say "yesterday" or "tomorrow." These words are confusing to readers. Use the day of the week. "Today" may be used.
89. Know the difference between its (no apostrophe for possessive pronoun) and it's (the contraction for it is). Examples: The dog has a thorn in its (possessive pronoun) paw. It's (contraction) time to go.
90. Know when to use "their" (possessive pronoun), "there" (adverb) and "they're" (the contraction for they are). Examples: It is their (possessive pronoun) project. The project is over there (adverb). They're (contraction) working together on the project.
91. Know the difference between whose (possessive pronoun) and who's (the contraction for who is). Examples: Whose (possessive pronoun) coat is this? Who's (contraction) going on the trip?
92. Know when to use "to" (preposition), "too" (adverb) and "two" (adjective). Examples: The advertising group is going to (preposition) Indianapolis. The public relations group wants to go, too (adverb). Some members are not going on the trip because it will take too (adverb) much time from their schedules. The two (adjective) groups will go to Indianapolis.
93. A person dies "unexpectedly," "apparently of a heart attack," "after a brief illness," "after a long illness," "of injuries suffered or sustained," "following or after an operation" or "of a disease."
94. In connection with suicides, it is best to say the person was "found dead" or "fell or plunged to his or her death" until the coroner completes his or her investigation. When suicide is reported, used died by suicide vs. committed suicide. For more guidelines on reporting and writing about suicide, go to www.suicidology.org/media/7.html.
95. In connection with arrests, write "arrested in connection with," "sought in connection with," "charged with" or "arrested on charges of." If a confession is involved but the confession has not been admitted as evidence in court, report only that the prisoner "has made a statement."
96. Injuries are "suffered or sustained," NOT received.
97. With murder, arrests are made "in connection with the death of." It should not be reported that a victim was murdered until someone is convicted of the crime. In obituaries, it may be said the victim was "killed" or "slain."
98. Remember two objects must be moving to "collide." If a vehicle runs into a parked one or an object, say the vehicle "struck" the stationary one.
99. Sometimes information cannot be verified. If doubt exists regarding a person's name, report the person "was listed by police as John Smith" or he "gave his name as John Smith." If a person is dead or unconscious and there is no identification, he or she is "unidentified," NOT unnamed. If there are questions about where a person lives, report "address not given" or "address unknown."
100. With fires, a building is "destroyed," NOT completely destroyed. Buildings also are damaged "lightly," "moderately" or "heavily." A fire may "gut" or "destroy" the interior of a building. To raze a building is to level it to the ground. (Compiled by Sheryl Swingley)
1. Keep leads short. Those with 35 words or less are preferred.
2. Leads limited to one or two sentences are preferred.
3. Avoid starting leads with "when" or "where" unless the time or place is unusual. Most leads start with "who" or "what."
4. Avoid beginning leads with "there" or "this."
5. In leads about future events, the time, day (date) and place usually go at the end of the paragraph.
6. In leads about past events, the day (date) of the event usually appears before or after the verb. Sometimes the day (date) comes at the end of the first sentence or the paragraph if it is a one-sentence lead.
7. Use quote and question leads sparingly.
8. The first five to "what happened" makes a better story than the fact it did.
BODY
9. Keep paragraphs short. Those limited to 60 words or less or no longer than 10 typeset lines are preferred.
10. Paragraphs limited to one to three sentences are preferred.
11. Each paragraph should contain only one idea.
12. Remember short paragraphs encourage readers to continue reading.
EDITING
13. Eliminate the word "that" whenever possible.
14. For past events, report it happened "Friday," NOT "last Friday." Eliminate the word "last." For future events, report it will happen "Monday," NOT "next Monday." Eliminate the word "next."
15. Eliminate the "be" verb. Write "she will resign" instead of "she will be resigning. "Write in future tense (will) instead of future progressive tense (will be "ing").
16. Eliminate words such as "when asked" and "concluded." These are weak transitions. Just report what was said.
17. A long title should follow the name. A title that follows the name should be lowercased and set off in commas. Shorter titles that precede names should be capitalized.
18. Avoid the contractions of he'd and they'd. "He'd" can mean both "he had" and "he would," and "they'd" can mean both "they had" and "they would."
19. Always double-check the spelling of names.
20. Make sure numbers match the items listed.
21. Make sure "only" is placed properly in a sentence. The location of "only" can change the meaning of a sentence.
22. Write. Rewrite. Revise. Rewrite. Revise. Edit. Revise. Edit. Edit. The first version of a story is NOT good enough to go into print. Someone once said THERE IS NO GREAT WRITING, ONLY GREAT REWRITING.
23. Read the story out loud to catch awkward sentence constructions.
GRAMMAR
24. If "none" means "no one" or "not one," use a singular verb. Consult the AP Stylebook or Grammar for Journalists for more information. Example: None was found guilty.
25. When you use a pronoun to refer to a team or a group, the proper pronoun to use is "its," NOT they. Example: The team wants to improve its record.
26. Make sure verbs or other phrases are "parallel" or the same in structure when they appear in stories or list. Examples: He likes gardening, fishing and hunting. The fire killed at least 12 persons, injured 60 more and forced scores of residents to leap from windows.
27. Use THIRD PERSON (she, he, it, its, her, hers, him, his, they, them, their, theirs) in news stories. Only on rare occasions do you use first person (I, mine, we, our, ours) or second person (you, your, yours) in news stories.
28. When "either ... or" and "neither ... nor" are used, the verb agrees in person with the nearer subject. Examples: Neither the coach nor the players are to blame. Neither the players nor the coach is to blame.
29. Use active voice vs. passive voice. The passive voice is formed by using some form of the verb "be" with the past participle of an action verb: is shot, was shot, has been shot, had been shot, may be shot, will be shot. The word "by" may also signal the sentence is written in passive voice. Rewrite sentences to eliminate the word "by." Example: Passive voice ; The city was ordered by the judge to make the payment. Active voice ; The judge ordered the city to make the payment.
MISCELLANEOUS
30. When something isn't clear, make a drawing of it. Putting it on paper can clarify the situation.
31. WHEN IN DOUBT, LEAVE IT OUT. This has to do with questionable information that may be libelous, incomplete information and information the writer does not have a clear understanding of.
NONSEXIST, NONAGEIST, NONDISCRIMINATORY COMMUNICATION
32. Avoid words that reinforce ageist, racial and ethnic stereotypes.
33. Avoid racial identification except when it's essential to communication.
34. Substitute asexual words for "man" words or sexist words.
NO
YES
mankind .......................................................
people, humanity, human beings,
human race
man-made ....................................................
synthetic, artificial, manufactured,
of human origin
manpower ....................................................
workers, work force, staff, personnel
man-hours ....................................................
work hours
man-sized .....................................................
husky, sizable, large, requiring
exceptional ability
founding fathers ...........................................
pioneers, colonists, patriots, forebears
gentleman's agreement .................................
informational agreement or contract
for the man on the way up ............................
for the person or executive on
his or her way up
for the lady of the house ................................
for the homemaker or consumer or head
of the household
anchorman ....................................................
anchor
advertising man ............................................
advertising professional or practitioner
chairman .......................................................
chairperson
cleaning woman ............................................
housekeeper, custodian
Englishmen ...................................................
the English
fireman ...........................................................
firefighter
foreman ........................................................
supervisor
a man who ....................................................
someone who
man the exhibit ..............................................
run the exhibit, staff the exhibit
man of letters ................................................
writer
newsman ......................................................
reporter
postman ........................................................
letter carrier
policeman ....................................................
police officer
salesman .......................................................
salesperson
stewardess ....................................................
flight attendant
self-made man ..............................................
self-made person
weatherman ..................................................
meteorologist
workman ......................................................
worker
the girls (for women over 18) ......................
the women
the little lady, the better half ..........................
wife
girl Friday .....................................................
secretary, assistant, right hand
libber or women's lib ....................................
feminist, liberationist, women's movement
the ladies and the men ...................................
the women and the men, the ladies and
the gentlemen, the girls and the boys
(Note the parallelism in structures.)
man and wife ................................................
husband and wife
you and your wife .........................................
you and your spouse
coed (for female students at a
coeducational school) ...................................
student
ladylike .........................................................
well-mannered
housewife .....................................................
homemaker (for a person who manages a
home); in an economic sense, consumer,
customer or shopper
career girl or career woman .........................
refer to the woman's profession or
vocation ; Professor Jane Jones;
Kathy Smith, welder
35. Separate the person from the handicap. For more information, go to www.easter.seals.org/resources/press/tips.asp.
NO
YES
Mary, an epileptic, had no trouble
Mary, who had epilepsy, had no trouble
doing her job.
doing her job.
The handicapped parents met to
The parents, each with some handicap,
exchange ideas.
met to exchange ideas.
The deaf accountant spotted the error.
The accountant spotted the error.
36. Be respectful of persons with handicaps. For more information, go to www.easter.seals.org/resources/press/tips.asp
NO
YES
crippled .........................................................
impaired, limited, disabled or be specific -
paraplegic
deaf and dumb, deaf mute .............................
deaf, hearing and/or speech impaired
crazy, insane, dull, half-witted, retarded ........
mentally ill, developmentally
disadvantaged, disabled or limited, or
be specific - emotionally disturbed,
slow learner
fits, spells ......................................................
seizures, epilepsy
37. Use "he or she" or "she or he" for "he." If using "he or she" or "him or her" becomes cumbersome, consider using a plural pronoun ; "they," "them," "their" or "theirs." Plural pronouns, however, are weaker than singular ones.
ORGANIZATION
38. Make sure information introduced or outlined in the lead is covered in the same order in the body of the story.
39. Avoid introducing new information at the end of a story. All aspects of a story should usually be introduced or outlined in the first few paragraphs.
40. Transitions are necessary to show the reader that the writer has a sense of direction. A word, phrase, sentence or paragraph can move the reader from one thought to another.
PARTS OF SPEECH
41. Avoid using "like" for "as." "Like" is a preposition and takes a noun or pronoun object. "As" is a subordinate conjunction that introduces dependent clauses. Examples: It tastes like a peach. The one-time millionaire now works from dawn to dusk, as he did in his youth.
42. Most adverbs are unnecessary. Redundant adverbs weaken strong verbs. Instead of "tightly clenched teeth," write "clinched teeth." Instead of "the radio blared loudly," write "the radio blared."
43. Most adjectives are unnecessary. The concept is oftentimes already in the noun. Use adjectives sparingly.
44. Choose verbs that suggest what they mean. "Active" verbs add pace, clarity and vigor to writing. Verbs are a writer's most important tools. Avoid "be" verbs.
PUNCTUATION
45. Use a comma with "according to." Example: ... , according to the news release. According to John Jones, ... .
46. There is no comma between time, date and place. Example: The accident occurred at 4:32 a.m. Monday one-half block north of Central Dairy on Third Street South.
47. When in doubt about the use of a comma, leave it out.
48. Avoid comma splices and comma blunders. If a comma is placed between the subject (noun) and predicate (verb), it's called a "comma splice." Example: The Fountain of Youth, is not in Florida. (The comma is NOT needed.) If two independent clauses are joined by a comma, this is a "comma blunder" or "comma fault." Example: The Fountain of Youth is not in Florida, it's in Russia. (This is known as a run-on sentence. A period or a semicolon should replace the comma. If a period is used, the "i" on "it's" also needs to be capitalized.)
49. A comma should precede "such as," "especially" and "including" when these words introduce examples. Examples: The advertised price of the tour does not cover some personal expenses, such as laundry, entertainment and tips. He likes fruit, especially oranges. In newswriting, students study various approaches to writing, including the inverted pyramid, chronological, narrative, personalized and first-person. When "such as" is used with a restrictive application, the comma is omitted. Example: Magazines such as these should be thrown in the trash.
50. Quotation marks go outside commas (,") and periods (."). They go inside semicolons (";) and colons (":).
51. In a series, a comma is NOT needed before the "and." Example: red, white and blue.
52. The dash is a long mark (-- or ; ). There should be a space before and after the dash. The dash should be used before words and sentences run as lists.
53. The hyphen is a short mark ( - ) and is used to divide words or to link hyphenated adjectives. Don't hyphenate adverbs ending in "ly" with adjectives. Write "frequently misused words," NOT "frequently-misused words."
54. Use an exclamation point in only the rarest of situations and only after brief interjections. Exclamation points are "graphic tantrums" and sometimes demonstrate a lack of control on the writer's part. The order of the words in a sentence should be arranged in such a way that they make the desired impression. Let the reader decide if the content is humorous or exciting on his or her own.
QUOTES AND ATTRIBUTION
55. Use attribution only once per paragraph.
56. Attribution is needed when policy change statements are made, when opinions are expressed or when "professional" opinions from physicians, scientists, engineers and others are used. Attribution is also needed with direct quotations and indirect quotations (paraphrased information).
57. Attribution is NOT needed when facts are commonplace and not subject to dispute or when they are accepted and historically true.
58. Attribution is usually noun + verb. Example: Jones said. It may be verb + noun when the source's title follows his or her name. Example: ... ," said John Jones, chairman of the department of English.
59. Attribution should be placed at the end of the first sentence when the quote is made up of two or more sentences.
60. When one quote follows another but the second one is from a different source, attribution for the second quote should be placed at the beginning of it. This helps the reader know immediately that a different person is speaking.
61. "Said" is the best word for attribution. Other words can be used, but they should accurately represent how something is said.
62. Use past tense verbs (said vs. says) for attribution in news stories.
63. Let quotes begin the paragraph. Show them off. Quote marks attract the reader's eye. Use them to encourage the reader to continue reading.
64. Avoid the use of partial quotes. Quote or paraphrase material. Don't mix the two.
65. Each time a different source is cited, start a new paragraph.
SENTENCE STRUCTURE
66. Avoid using the same word twice in a sentence.
67. The optimum number of words to use in a sentence is 14 to 16. The average reader cannot comprehend a sentence with more than 40 words.
68. When writing becomes cumbersome, turn one long sentence into two or three shorter ones.
69. If a long sentence must be used, place a short sentence before and after it.
70. Don't have more than three consecutive prepositional phrases in a sentence. Prepositional phrases start with about, above, against, at, between, by, down, during, for, from, in, like, on, over, through, to, toward, under, up, until, upon, with ...
71. Count the words in a story's sentences. Sentence length should vary. Stories become dull when sentences are all the same length.
72. Don't start or end a sentence with "however." Start the sentence and then work "however" into it as soon as possible. This word is intended to cause an interruption in thought.
SPELLING
73. Use "Spell Check" on the computer.
74. Consult a dictionary. (Webster New World Dictionary is the preferred reference.)
75. Ask for help. Public library information desk personnel can be resourceful and helpful. Don't call university libraries for assistance.
STYLE
76. Consult the AP Stylebook and Libel Manual.
77. If the answer cannot be found in the AP Stylebook, consult a dictionary or a grammar book.
78. The order for writing when and where is time, day (date) and place.
79. Use the day of the week for six days before or after a specific day.
80. Use the date when it is seven or more days before or after a specific day.
81. On first reference, identify a person by his or her first and last names. On second reference, refer to the person by his or her last name only. On second and all other references, you don't need Miss, Mrs., Ms. or Mr. unless it's an obituary.
VOCABULARY
82. Use simple words. Never send the reader to the dictionary. Odds are the reader won't bother looking up the definition.
83. Words such as "thing" and "a lot" annoy some readers, bosses and executives. Avoid using them. (Note the correct spelling of "a lot.")
84. Be careful how the word "held" is used. Make sure the object can be "held" physically. Example: Weak ; The meeting will be held at noon Monday in Anthony Administration Building, Room 125. Better ; The meeting will be at noon Monday in ...
85. Avoid using words that qualify how someone feels, thinks or sees. "Little qualifiers" include the following: a bit, a little, sort of, kind of, rather, around, quite, very, pretty, much, in a very real sense, somewhat.
86. Avoid technical jargon unless 95 percent or more of the readers will understand it. If technical jargon is used and it won't be understood by the majority of readers, be sure to explain each term used.
87. Learn the difference between "affect" (usually a verb) and "effect" (usually a noun). Consult the AP Stylebook or a dictionary for more information.
88. Never say "yesterday" or "tomorrow." These words are confusing to readers. Use the day of the week. "Today" may be used.
89. Know the difference between its (no apostrophe for possessive pronoun) and it's (the contraction for it is). Examples: The dog has a thorn in its (possessive pronoun) paw. It's (contraction) time to go.
90. Know when to use "their" (possessive pronoun), "there" (adverb) and "they're" (the contraction for they are). Examples: It is their (possessive pronoun) project. The project is over there (adverb). They're (contraction) working together on the project.
91. Know the difference between whose (possessive pronoun) and who's (the contraction for who is). Examples: Whose (possessive pronoun) coat is this? Who's (contraction) going on the trip?
92. Know when to use "to" (preposition), "too" (adverb) and "two" (adjective). Examples: The advertising group is going to (preposition) Indianapolis. The public relations group wants to go, too (adverb). Some members are not going on the trip because it will take too (adverb) much time from their schedules. The two (adjective) groups will go to Indianapolis.
93. A person dies "unexpectedly," "apparently of a heart attack," "after a brief illness," "after a long illness," "of injuries suffered or sustained," "following or after an operation" or "of a disease."
94. In connection with suicides, it is best to say the person was "found dead" or "fell or plunged to his or her death" until the coroner completes his or her investigation. When suicide is reported, used died by suicide vs. committed suicide. For more guidelines on reporting and writing about suicide, go to www.suicidology.org/media/7.html.
95. In connection with arrests, write "arrested in connection with," "sought in connection with," "charged with" or "arrested on charges of." If a confession is involved but the confession has not been admitted as evidence in court, report only that the prisoner "has made a statement."
96. Injuries are "suffered or sustained," NOT received.
97. With murder, arrests are made "in connection with the death of." It should not be reported that a victim was murdered until someone is convicted of the crime. In obituaries, it may be said the victim was "killed" or "slain."
98. Remember two objects must be moving to "collide." If a vehicle runs into a parked one or an object, say the vehicle "struck" the stationary one.
99. Sometimes information cannot be verified. If doubt exists regarding a person's name, report the person "was listed by police as John Smith" or he "gave his name as John Smith." If a person is dead or unconscious and there is no identification, he or she is "unidentified," NOT unnamed. If there are questions about where a person lives, report "address not given" or "address unknown."
100. With fires, a building is "destroyed," NOT completely destroyed. Buildings also are damaged "lightly," "moderately" or "heavily." A fire may "gut" or "destroy" the interior of a building. To raze a building is to level it to the ground. (Compiled by Sheryl Swingley)
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