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Friday, November 18, 2005

Woodward, trivia, usage

"To sit on such incendiary information for so long, especially while other reporters are being threatened with jail, is beneath the standards to which I thought Woodward subscribed." Jack Shafer, Slate, November 18, 2005
I assume none of the people now faulting Woodward for sitting on the information were making the "freedom of the press" arguments about Judith Miller. And it seems odd to suggest that if the government squeezes the reporters it knows about, that should cause the ones it doesn't know about to come forward out of some ethical duty. Perhaps I'm not thinking about this correctly.

Speaking of ethical duties, I heard Michael Isikoff of Newsweek interviewed about Woodward the other day. Like Slate's Shafer, he never noted that his publication is owned by The Washington Post Company.

Don't Trust Snakes Trivia Question: Besides the flagship paper, what is the only other daily newspaper The Washington Post Company owns? Answer in a moment.

Don't Trust Snakes Usage Question: Isn't the "besides . . . only other" construction redundant? Shouldn't it just be "besides . . . only"? I think so but decided the ear still wants "other" in there. And while we are on the subject of usage, would you say "upon the sooner to occur of x or y" or "upon the sooner to occur of x and y"? I think the construction imagines the existence of both x and y and therefore it should be "and." Most people, if they had to draft such language, would write "or." Both x and y might not occur in actual fact, but the use of comparative construction demands use of "and." And with that nice digression I have provided a lovely buffer leading up to the . . .

Don't Trust Snakes Trivia Answer: It's the Everett Herald in Everett, Washington (up Interstate 5 from Seattle). Go figure.


posted at 1:59 PM

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