Journalese

'Journalese' refers to the artificial, exaggerated, and sometimes excessively abbreviated style of language commonly associated with popular news media. Brevity is particularly important in headlines, which possess their own distinctive linguistic style known as headlinese. The preference for short words in headlinese has also influenced the vocabulary used in news reports themselves.

One characteristic of journalese is anthropomorphisation, in which abstract entities or periods of time are presented as if they could perform human actions. For example, journalists may write, “The 1990s saw an increase in crime,” rather than the simpler “Crime increased in the 1990s.” Other characteristic features include the use of onomatopoeia, possessive constructions involving place names—such as “New York’s Central Park” instead of “Central Park, in New York”—and formulaic filler material, such as the conventional language found in stories about bus plunges or similar incidents.

Some readers find journalese amusing because of its colourful and distinctive vocabulary. Certain journalistic expressions can also make reports easier to understand by replacing complicated technical jargon with short, familiar phrases. Nevertheless, critics argue that “lazy writing goes with lazy thought.” In their view, journalese can be a sign of a weak story supported by inadequate evidence, with exaggerated language being used to make the story seem more substantial or interesting. It has even been compared to a poker player’s “tell”: the language supposedly reveals that the reporter knows the story is weak and is attempting to make it appear stronger.

Another criticism concerns the frequent use of the passive voice and similar constructions. Such forms can function as a type of weasel wording, because they may obscure who actually carried out the action being described. For this reason, subeditors or copy editors are generally trained to remove unnecessary journalese. The New York Times, for example, has used a customised spell-checking system designed to identify particularly obvious examples.

Journalese is also characterised by unusual transformations of words. Adjectives may be converted into nouns, as in “greats” and “notables.” Nouns may become verbs, as in “to host,” while words may be shortened to create verbs such as “enthuse” and “emote.” Existing verbs may also be embellished through expressions such as “beef up” and “put teeth into.” Within this linguistic world, prominent people may be described as “famed,” their colleagues as “staffers,” future events are repeatedly described as “upcoming,” and someone is perpetually “firing off” a note.

Clichés owe much to journalese. It is a language of labels and instant metaphors, shaped partly by the spatial limitations of newspaper headlines. Every young reporter quickly learns that fires “rage out of control,” minor acts of mischief are attributed to “vandals” rather than more historically specific groups such as Visigoths, Franks, or an individual Vandal, and important labour agreements are “hammered out” by exhausted negotiators during “marathon, round-the-clock bargaining sessions,” often with threatened “walkouts” looming in the background.

Journalists frequently slip into a loose style dominated by generalisations, clichés, jargon, and overwriting. Typical journalese expressions include “soaring temperatures,” “skyrocketing costs,” “raging fires,” and “rampaging rivers.” Projects are “kicked off,” opponents “weigh in,” while buildings are “slated for demolition” or “tagged.”

Journalese has attracted almost every possible negative description, ranging from “awful” to “zippy,” and criticism of the style dates back to the earliest recorded uses of the term. In a British column published on 15 November 1890, “The Lounger” in The Critic condemned journalese as “a compost of archaisms and neologisms, of slang and English that has faded out of life—an English that is only English to the adept in journalese.” More broadly, criticism can be traced to the 1880s, when journalists were already being criticised for their stilted and clichéd language.

The repetitive nature of journalese is partly explained by the working conditions of journalism. Reporters are often required to produce numerous similar stories rapidly and under pressure, encouraging reliance on familiar formulas and ready-made expressions. Common examples include phrases such as “hammered out agreement” and “called for tighter restrictions.” Excessive reliance on legalistic terms can also weaken their meaning; for instance, repeated use of words such as “mayhem” can eventually make them almost meaningless.

Journalese also has a characteristic vocabulary that favours unusual, archaic, or abbreviated words. Examples include “ink” used as a verb, “nab,” “slated,” “ailing,” and “quizzed” instead of the simpler “asked” or “questioned.” Other examples include “funnyman” and the use of verbs such as “attack” as synonyms for “criticise.” Many of these expressions survive because they have become fossilised within conventional journalistic phrases, while others are favoured because shorter words help journalists conserve space.

As Wilson Follett observes in Modern American Usage, “journalese is the tone of manufactured excitement.” William Zinsser similarly describes it as “the death of freshness in any writer’s style.” Together, these observations capture the central criticism of journalese: its tendency to replace direct, precise, fresh language with formulaic expressions, exaggerated imagery, clichés, jargon, and artificial excitement.