BOSTON — They didn’t agree on everything, but that wasn’t a surprise considering the columnists’ experience of delivering opinions.
The Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy and the Hartford (Conn.) Courant’s Jeff Jacobs shared their likes and dislikes, tips and tricks during the “Craft of Writing” panel discussion Thursday afternoon.
Joe Sullivan, sports editor of the Globe, was the moderator.
Ryan said he thinks a problem with many stories is the misuse of quotations, often those used to end stories. He said that too many times, the quotes are banal and meaningless, and in most cases, there’s a common theme in quality pieces of writing: They don’t use many quotes, adding to the punch of the quotes that did make the cut. He compared over-quoting with Hamburger Helper, saying that too often, quotes are used only as filler.
“You should have a beginning, a middle and an end,” Ryan said. “That is not an end.”
Jacobs disagreed, saying he prefers to let the story subjects speak, which he said helps the story unfold.
“I’m a big believer,” Jacobs said, “in getting out of the way.”
Shaughnessy didn’t discuss the matter, saying there’s no single way to write a story. He said he relies on feel in many cases, along with a few tricks he has learned since becoming a columnist in 1989. One of those is to keep a running list of story ideas, many of which he’s unable to get to. Still, he said it’s good to have so many ideas, adding that he hopes to someday get to most of them.
Shaughnessy and Ryan said they’re reluctant to join Twitter, Shaughnessy saying that he saves his “A-material” for his columns. Jacobs again disagreed, saying that journalism in 2011 requires a commitment to social networking; he said he has a Twitter profile and two Facebook pages.
Sullivan said the Globe is “negotiating” with its columnists to get them to tweet.
The columnists also discussed their strategies for deadline writing, Ryan saying he needs only an hour after an event to craft a solid story.
