09.10.08

Redact to the Future

Posted in write tight at 5:55 am by Bill Brohaugh

Tuesday’s USA Today sports section covers the aftermath of an East Carolina U. upset victory over West Virginia. Fans poured onto the field, and now there are allegations of security pouring it on the fans. That’s background to my griping about the writer pouring it on the readers.

The story quotes ECU police chief Scott Shelton:

“We have five other jurisdictions who assist us at football games, and we will have a reassessment of what jurisdictions we use (in the future),” Shelton said at campus news conference.

Yes, “at campus news conference”—but that’s just me being snarky and it’s beside my main point. Why did Andy Gardiner, the observer outside the game, have to charge onto the field to pour it on with that parenthetical insertion? What does “in the future” add to this sentence? Several elements in the quote imply the future:

• Few things will take place in the past or the present. Everything will take place in the future. Will is a verb of future tense.
• Reassessment doesn’t connote the future the way will does, yet it implies potential change, and (Doc Brown, Marty McFly and revisionists running for high political office aside) changing the past has proven to be a bit difficult.
• The entire context of the story—something went wrong—implies that change will be made. The bigger story is that after such a situation, change is not made.

Sometimes to write tight, it’s best to sit tight. In this quoted material, the original words were doing their work; the speaker was managing to communicate without the need for patronizing kibbitzing. Sometimes, football fans and reporters, it’s simply best to stay in the stands and let the players play the game.

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