The Thinking May Be Bad, But The Writing Is Awful

Art Woolf does his usual masterful job  deconstructing the thinking – if, indeed, it can be called that – that animates this Freeps editorial.  Whatever pretenses the paper’s editors may have had to economic literacy, those have now been utterly demolished.  One hopes the editors have the wit to realize it and that, in the future, they will leave these matters to the grown-ups.

It is sad, but unsurprising, that the editors of a major newspaper are ignorant when it comes to the basics of formal economics.  After all, there are all kinds of things that newspaper editors don’t know anything about but that hasn’t stopped them from pontificating on those matters.  Still, if those people are untutored about the subject at hand, they should at least know how to write.  That skill, after all, is fundamental to their trade.  But judged simply as a piece of writing, the Freeps editorial is woeful.  It is an organizational and thematic mess, wandering all over the map in a futile attempt to link the amount of money Exxon makes, the sub-prime mortgage problem, the war in Iraq, offshore drilling, food banks, and the nature of democracy.  For all its ambition the piece lacks wit, cogency, and style and relies, instead, on tired devices like this:

The profit was $11.7 billion in the second quarter.
Repeat: $11.7 billion.

The editors are so fond of this rhetorical device that they use it again, a couple of paragraphs later:

“Let’s repeat that: Wall Street expected bigger profits.”

The alert reader thinks, “Yeah, got it the first time.  And it wasn’t cute then.”

Actually, the stylistic problems with this piece begin with the title. “Obscene Profits May Pave Way For Reform.”  A writer falls back on such stale phrasing out of sheer laziness. “Obscene profits?”  That sort of thing comes out of Bernie Sanders’ mouth when he is merely clearing his throat. 

If you come at your reader with “obscene profits,” he knows that you have absolutely nothing original or interesting to say and that you are simply singing from an old, familiar sheet of music.  If the Freeps editors can’t be bothered with fresh thinking or phrasing, what incentive does the reader have to continue beyond the title. Which, after all, does “pave the way.”

But the reader who does persevere will begin to appreciate this lazy reliance on clichés later in the essay.  When the editors try to write with a little verve, the results are painful to the ear:

“These are the kinds of profits and unrealistic expectations that shake the foundations of political acquiescence.”

Oh, dear.  Get the children, Myrtle, we’ve got to head for the hills.  The political acquiescence is about to crumble.

Perhaps the Freeps editors should rely on clichés, after all, and leave the fancy writing – and the economics – to others. 

Comments

[Robert]

Just read the Freep reader responses and you will understand the standard their readers hold them to.