Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law 2002 Edition [Paperback]

By nature, this book is essential. It fills a very real need. It supplies an essential and uniform standard for the composition of news writting. For this function, the book deserves five stars, however because this function is so essential, it requiers an up to date standard, and untill this book comes up to pace with the modern times, I will withold three of those stars.

When I say it is not up to date, a great example of what I mean comes with the current frequency of the need to use Arabic names. The book provides no clear standard for this. The Arabic name Al Queda, for instance, has become quite common place, but news organizations have struggled with how exactly to quote this name. Most of the trouble centers around the singular nomonative case article ('al') which of course translates as 'the.' Thus, Al Queda has also been cited as The Queda, or even just Queda. If the whole invaluable point of the book is standardize the language used in reporting, then it needs to address the newest issues in the news and the vocabulary that has rocketed into our headlines from out of nowhere in the last few years.

Also, as bad as what is left out may be, it is not nearly as bad as what is left in. For instance, the book suggest that the proper way to refer to Mainland China is "Red China." Even worse, the book explains that the uncapitalized term 'god' is used to refer to *false* gods, whereas the capitalized term 'God' is used to refer to the *one true god.* For me this is particularly offensive, and on the whole, these are just a couple of the examples of the sort of antiquated and obnoxious McCarthy-era media manipulations that for some reason still haunt us through the AP Style Manual.

In the end, these problems are all easy to fix, and this book comes out in new editions all the time. I believe it performs an essential function, of standardizing the terms used by the media, which should reduce biased manipulation of language (as opposed to encouraging them, as in the examples I have given). I worked journalism in College, and I even won a few awards. I credit much of this to the ideas and applications behind the AP Style manual. Not only does it do a great service to journalism and reporting, but also, it teaches an elegant and simple way of writting, succinctly and to the point without sacraficing depth and sophistication.

I was once told by a gifted Classicist, after reading both Herodotus and Thucidides, that although it would be easy to lapse into writting like Herodotus, one really should strive to write like Thucidides. The best way I can explain Thucidides' style in modern terms is to equate that aspiration with reading and observing the concepts in the Associate Press Stylebook.

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