One of the riskiest words in a script is first. A first may make a story seem stronger, but the careful writer doesn’t use first without being certain, and then only if an event’s firstness is significant. Let’s look at a recent network story and see how first didn’t last. On Sunday, July 31, the anchor of CBS’s “Evening News” said:
“On Tuesday, historic Alexandria, Virginia, will be making some modern history, becoming the first local government to offer free outdoor Internet access, but on Capitol Hill, right across the Potomac, not everyone is thrilled, and ____ ____ tells us why.”
Two days after the broadcast, on Tuesday, Aug. 2, Alexandria issued a press release saying the city was “officially launching ‘Wireless Alexandria'” that day. The release said the pilot project would offer “the region’s first free, outdoor, wireless Internet zone.” The region‘s first, not the first local government‘s, as the anchor had said.
But The Washington Post said, accurately, that the free service in Alexandria had begun seven weeks earlier. Not until August 2, though, did the service begin “officially.” The Post article also said Alexandria was “the first local government to offer alfresco Web surfing at no charge.” By saying local government, the Post might have meant it was the first government in the newspaper’s circulation area to offer free outdoor Internet access. But when a broadcast network says first local government, that covers a lot of ground: every municipality in the United States.
As the anchor said, Alexandria is historic, but no more so than many other places in Virginia. Further, how can the news writer say any particular place will be making modern history? Would anyone hope to make ancient history? In any case, news writers don’t decide who will be “making history”; historians will decide — and not tonight.
The correspondent began by having a college student tell us what Wi-Fi is: a system that provides wireless access to the Internet. Then the correspondent said:
“The city spent 20-thousand dollars on four sets of unobtrusive antennas, following the lead of more than 80 communities around the country, places like Lafayette, Louisiana, and the city of Philadelphia, which are in the process of setting up Wi-Fi networks.”
If Alexandria was following the lead of more than 80 communities, it surely wasn’t the leader, as the anchor said. Rather than first, Alexandria may be eighty-first. Not all those communities, though, have systems up and running. Delete in the process of; the sentence will still mean the same. Also delete the city of.
Long before Alexandria began providing outdoor Wi-Fi free, many other places were already doing so. A year ago, Hermosa Beach, Calif., began offering it. Last September, Culver City, Calif., also did so. And on Aug. 7, 2005, the columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times about what he said seems to be the largest Wi-Fi hot spot in the world — 600 square miles in eastern Oregon and southern Washington. Kristof said the free service has been operating for more than a year and a half.
As a brief search on the Internet showed, Alexandria was not first. Not even close. Which is why a prudent anchor, before writing a lead-in, or delivering one, finds out what the correspondent has said, or is going to say, and resolves any conflicts between the lead-in and the correspondent’s copy.
Better yet: when time allows, the correspondent writes the first sentence of a piece so that it can work as the anchor lead-in. Then the correspondent opens the piece with her second sentence. If the CBS anchor and the correspondent had done that, there would have been no conflict — and no false first.
Mervin Block, a newswriting coach, is the author of “Writing Broadcast News — Shorter, Sharper Stronger.” His tips and articles are at http://www.mervinblock.com. You can reach him (or sign up for his free tips list) at merblo@aol.com.
