October 15, 2019

TRUMP KEEPS SCREAMING AT US IN ALL CAPS. Reporters Shouldn’t.

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One of the unspoken rules and grammatically grotesque assumptions of news reporting in the Trump era is that DONALD TRUMP writes EVERYONE’S capitalization style guides, and that the ticktock of impeachment and political campaigns isn’t enough to keep READERS reading. Scandal fatigue? Get the smelling salts. The strong stuff. The CAPS LOCK. How else to inform READERS than by INTREPID JOURNALISTS capping people’s names—or random words—in otherwise fine tweets? Reporters everywhere, keep up the (periodically) good work, but keep down the damn caps. Desperate times do not call for desperate capitalization. Save it for a truly shattering headline.

Have we learned nothing from history? Scream at readers long enough in caps and it becomes the register from which a higher register must be measured. We need to keep naming names and taking names. Not all-capsing them.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

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