Column: An Unsalty Newsroom?

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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A Newsroom That Isn’t A Little Salty?

Journalism and free speech are under attack, but I am not talking about cartoonists and Charlie Hebdo.

Earlier this week, York (Pa.) Newspaper Company publisher Sara Glines sent a memo to her troops at the York Daily Record, Lebanon Daily News, Public Opinion News, and Evening Sun requesting they not only use spell-check on their print copy but swear-check on their verbal language. It read in part:

1swear“I’ve heard some troubling conversations recently, so I want to remind all employees that cursing is not appropriate in the work environment. … I know that newspapers have had a salty history and culture. And I know that we all will slip from time to time. Still, I believe we can express ourselves adequately without the use of profanity. Let’s clean up our language and make this a workplace that anyone can feel comfortable in.”

This would seem admirable except for one small thing – we are talking about newsrooms! Might as well try to rid a football locker room, foxhole or Chris Rock of salty language. Good luck, and besides, why?

Glines didn’t stop at nixing the high sodium content in the newsroom air. She followed up the punch to the potty mouth with a second to the stomach via another memo a day later:

“Happy 2015 everyone! If your new year resolution is to eat healthy, we’re here to help. Our Healthy Vending machines will be installed on Thursday! No more Mountain Dew, no more Snickers bars. But there will be plenty of tasty treats. … And an added bonus, the new machines will accept credit cards, so you can snack without borrowing cash from your colleagues.”

Is she salty-word serious? This smells of entrapment because the surest way to make journalists swear, next to taking away half the word count they were promised for a story, is taking away their junk food.

Normally the posted comments under an on-line story aren’t worth the electrons used to illuminate them on-screen, but in this case the responses are as nearly as fun as being in a newsroom near deadline. Here’s a sampling:

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“No cussing, OR snickers bars? This. Must. Not. Stand. #JeSuisYorkPA”

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“I don’t see this as a workplace that I would ‘feel comfortable in.’ ”

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“How the hell are people supposed to work under these conditions?”

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“We need to send these people some (salty word) Snickers bars and (four salty words) Mountain Dew RIGHT NOW.”

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“It’s the dawn of a golden age in that newsroom for reporters with kids selling candy bars.”

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“You’ve (salty word) got to be (salty word) me. Not about the swearing – about the notion that York Daily Record employees are paid well enough to have credit cards.”

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“No cursing, no junk food, AND no bumming change from coworkers? Has she ever worked in a newsroom before?”

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“Does this mean we have to surrender the fifth of Old Granddad in our bottom desk drawer? (Salty word) I mean – darn – journalism really is becoming just like any other business: boring, bland, and bound to go under. Murrow and The Boys are rolling in their graves.”

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“Hell. On. Earth. Or Pennsylvania.”

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“The place sounds like a living heck.”

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“I’ll give up my Snickers when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Don’t take away my right to bear bars.”

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“(Three salty words)! Another publisher who probably gets her news tips at the hair salon on Thursdays and tells the M.E. (Managing Editor): ‘It’s all anybody is talking about.’ ”

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“Once they installed carpeting in the newsroom, it was downhill from there.”

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“Try as I might, I just can’t imagine myself saying aloud in any of the newsrooms where I toiled: ‘Gosh darn it, that silly ol’ mayor isn’t calling me back and I need to file this story right doggone now. Dag nab it!’ ”

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“Paging George Carlin.”

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            In closing, let me page the ol’ newspaperman Mark Twain, who said: “Profanity is more necessary to me than is immunity from colds” and “When angry count four; when very angry, swear.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”