When I was in high school and into college I was into journalism. I was an editor, a writer/reporter, and I loved it. One of the books always in my bag was in the AP Stylebook. Yes, I was a different kind of geek then, but I had that book pretty well read over and I could tell you the right usage of most terms. (Nowadays…no way.)
For those who don’t know, the AP Stylebook is like the journalist’s bible. (Oooh, I bet that I’m supposed to capitalize “bible”!) Everything has to be written a certain way in the journalism world — it’s quite intense!
So when I read this week about some of the additions they’ve added to the AP Stylebook I had to laugh.
One big change was it’s no longer “Web site”, but instead “website.” Altogether there are 41 new and changed definitions, use cases and rules for journalists to follow.
Among the more interesting changes are separating out “smart phone” as two words, hyphenating “e-reader,” and allowing fan, friend and follow to be used both as nouns and verbs.
AP has also decided to recognize a number of acronyms that are commonly used in texting and instant messaging. Most of them are fairly well-known to regular web and mobile phone users (ROFL, BRB and G2G among them), along with the odd “POS“. (Sorry folks, it’s not that POS.)
According to the AP, POS stands for “parent over shoulder” and is used by “teens and children to indicate, in an IM conversation, that a parent is approaching.”
Other terms making the cut include “trending,” “retweet” and “unfriend” (“defriend” is also acceptable, though the AP concludes it’s less common).
Finally, the AP also offers some basic rules of thumb for how social media should and shouldn’t be used by journalists, with a focus on making sure they continue to confirm sources and information they find on blogs, tweets and other forms of social media.
Really, how reliable is information found on tweets and Facebook? Blogs, but of course. I will say that the journalist in me has been dying knowing that I’ve been writing without sourcing most of what I write!
