Breaking a Rule

Today's post is from the dark side, and the non-fiction works.

Rules by one definition are a group of actions or restrictions commonly accepted as the standard. Sometimes for various reasons what is acceptable changes and a rule modified or discarded. When I first started working as a journalist, Rule Number One was the Five Ws, or "Who, What, Where, When, Why." Rule Number Two was "Just the facts." 

If you forgot a "W" where the information was available or relevant, the editor would write the appropriate one on the top  of the manuscript in red pen, then circle it to make sure you didn't miss it. Breaking Rule Number Two by including any personal bias, speculation, desired outcome, or even by what today would be considered a minor slant by choice of words would get you in hot water. Opinions and personal reactions were only allowed on the editorial page.

Our "Why" had to be expert-provided facts or in the case of a crime, a directly  quoted admission from the perpetrator, Recently I saw mainstream television news journalists proudly proclaiming their activism. They were not just reporting on an event, but justifying it. What once would be breaking a rule is now the rule.

 

Some could say that I exhibited a bias in my local histories with the selection of events to record or in the photographs included. At a book signing a very unhappy person approached my table. The reason? I hadn't included his grandfather in the section related to the schools.

 

But how to answer. Now consider that I hadn't included listings of the principals for all of the school.  I am sure my answer didn't satisfy him, but it was all that i could offer. Not everything that happened in the town over the previous 300 years nor every person who did anything could be in the book. And I added, I didn't even include my father-in-law despite his many, many years of service to the town and county.

~till next time, may you always know what rule to break (or bend.) And if so inclined check out the books that came from the dark side. Helen