To directly quote or to not directly quote

I basically posted this same thing on sj.com. People might be out of steam on this subject, but I think this Richard Prince blog entry is an interesting one.

http://www.mije.org/richardprince/some-learned-proper-english-others

We've talked about this numerous times, but there are some other thoughts about the whole thing.

Whenever this comes up, I have to laugh a little about this from AP:

"Never alter quotations even to correct minor grammatical errors or word usage. Casual minor tongue slips may be removed by using ellipses but even that should be done with extreme caution. If there is a question about a quote, either don't use it or ask the speaker to clarify. . . . Do not use substandard spellings such as gonna or wanna in attempts to convey regional dialects or informal pronunciations, except to help a desired touch in a feature."

I positively guarantee you that AP doesn't come close to following its own rule on this. As if every athlete ever quoted in an AP story is quoted verbatim.

My career stops have uniformly cleaned up quotes except for features. But I understand the debate, and the added complication of more and more people being able to hear the direct quote, a discern it's different than the written one, because of multimedia is an interesting one.

Bernie Lincicome wastes no time writing again

As promised, Bernie Lincicome has quickly transitioned from a columnist at the former Rocky Mountain News to one of the more highly talented bloggers you're going to run across.

Bernie's blog is here.

And Phil Rosenthal's Chicago Tribune story on it is here.

I consider Bernie a mentor, somebody that had a profound impact on my entire career. He's also a hell of a read and worth checking out regularly.

Note to Bernie: The death of the Rockie = bad thing. The new freedom you have to write about whatever the hell you want = good thing.