“Boil the fat out of the copy,” said Journalism Professor Ken Byerley. He taught “less is more” to we students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
When I was a cub reporter, my Abilene Reporter-News editor Frank Grimes constrained himself to one typewritten page when he typed an editorial. Yes, he did keep margins wide.
If ‘Mister G’ still had more to say, he twirled another piece of paper into his typewriter and wrote a second editorial.
Ernest Hemingway wrote concise war reports. He wired cables from Spain to his publisher during that revolution. Because cable reports were charged by the word, Hemingway developed a cryptic writing style.
Today’s internet users employ an even more cryptic style. React with faces. That’s all, folks.
Photo by Sabine Kroschel at Pixabay
