KHON News in the Present Tense

[scrivener]

Does anyone know what's up with KHON's reporters' recent use of the present tense in most of their stories? I find it disturbing and annoying, not to mention gimmicky and unnecessary. It's a huge distraction and the reporters seem to have difficulty keeping their tenses straight, often switching to past-tense and future-tense with no grace at all.

"So and so is enjoying breakfast when she hears a loud crash outside her front door. She runs to investigate, just in time to see a car slam into her neighbor's mango tree. The driver is unhurt, but damage to the wall will cost ten thousand dollars to repair."

I'm seriously going to start avoiding the channel 2 news if this keeps up. What are the journalistic, stylistic guidelines here? Am I the only one whose ears are offended by this ridiculous movement?

[pzarquon]

Re: KHON News in the Present Tense

Actually, present tense language is common in television (and radio), but it's tricky, and needs to be done well, and only when appropriate. I only notice when its done badly - as you mention, when they switch tense in mid story (or even mid sentence!), or when it is forced onto a story that demandsthe past tense (i.e. a specific past event).

Believe it or not, even when covering something a week old, TV copy is often wrestled into the present tense... at least for the lead. So, instead of, "The young girl who was injured when a tree fell..." becomes "A young girl remains in critical condition tonight, recovering from injuries..." Again, written and delivered well, it's fine, but when they have to lead off with a tense-scrambling tongue twister, it probably would've been better to just keep it simple.

The weird things done to language in the name of "live" reporting is a constant pet peeve of old fashioned journalists. Of course, I'm too young to pretend to be a contemporary of Dan Rather or anything, but I was definitely schooled by "traditionalists," and the same things rub me the wrong way.

Fox News? My old J. prof would have seizures if she had to listen to the way they speak.

Check out this NewsLab article, I'd Like to Buy a Verb, and this brief PBS segment, The Vanishing Verb. Heck, just browse what you get for Googling "television news" and "present tense."

[kimo55]

Re: KHON News in the Present Tense

just like when they announce a death:
"Joe Blow Dies"

He dies!?
poor guy.
when will it stop?

instead of
"Joe Blow has died."

[pzarquon]

Re: KHON News in the Present Tense

That's a print journalism convention, I think. And, FWIW, you'll see the correct tense in the story ("Jim Henson died today..."), but they always use "dies" in headlines, which are a whole separate category of style. Why not "has died"? You can drop an article, and save a few picas of space. Note that the hed will say "group protests land sale," for example, instead of "protested," even if the protest was yesterday.

In print, more attention is paid to the flow and consistent tense of copy, anyway, so reading is usually less jarring than it is hearing weird grammar in TV or radio.

[Howard Dicus]

Re: KHON News in the Present Tense

I knew a guy in radio who wrote like this:

Governor Lingle... signing a bill to authorize more school repairs.
A hurricane... pelting Florida.
Jeff Stone... planning renovations for the Princeville Resort.

Notice anything weird about those "ing" verbs?

+ They're not really verbs, but merely set off descriptive dependent clauses.
+ The first one covers an event in the past.
+ The second one covers an ongoing event.
+ The third one covers a future event.

(I can't remember, are these gerunds? I wasn't paying enough attention in the sixth grade.)

It's hard to figure how that guy could ever have arrived at the idea that this made the copy better. The way it sounded on the air was kind of singsongy and hypnotic.

Generally speaking, even a useful technique, applied uniformly, makes news less interesting. Uniformity of content is bad. If your anchor is Trixie and she's smooth and affable night after night, that's good. But the content should always be different.

(When a story is so big you just have to lead with it several nights in a row, that's okay, but the reason it's okay is that people are following it so much more intently than other stories that the new details create the difference, though they wouldn't on regular stories. The line-up might not look different but the content still will be, in the viewer's mind.)

[Linkmeister]

Re: KHON News in the Present Tense

Dictionary dot com: gerund:

2. In other languages, a verbal noun analogous to the Latin gerund, such as the English form ending in -ing when used as a noun, as in singing in We admired the choir's singing.

You paid enough attention, Howard.

I agree with you, too. Uniformity is better in print, unless you're using it in oratory. Think how many speeches you've heard where there's a call-and-response refrain, repeated over and over.

[Howard Dicus]

Re: KHON News in the Present Tense

Ah, good point! Another advantage of not using a technique all the time is that it's there for parallel construction when you want it for effect. One would almost say for musical effect.