Know your audience (Wild card)

We've covered a lot in our crash course in editing. The majority of what we've looked at, though, has dealt with the actual grammar issues involved in writing.

But there's one more important factor we need to look at: audience.

It's of the utmost importance that journalists know their audiences. You don't want to write something that will blatantly offend a large portion of your primary audience.

The Associated Press released a story on Monday about the IRA in Northern Ireland. Having studied abroad in Ireland and traveled to Northern Ireland, specifically to the city mentioned in the story, I cringed a little when I saw what they called the city:

"The queen of England is wanted for war crimes in Ireland and not wanted on Irish soil," a masked Real IRA man told more than 200 supporters rallying in a cemetery in Northern Ireland's second-largest city of Londonderry.

 To anyone who wouldn't otherwise know, there is nothing wrong with the name Londonderry. Technically, it is the "official" name of the city. However, if you go to Northern Ireland and refer to it as Londonderry, you will get countless people glaring at you and telling you that no, it's just Derry. The London part comes from when the British took over-- a fact that most Northern Irish are still very upset about.

This is a case of knowing your audience. When referring to the city, especially in the context of people in the city being angry, it probably would have been more appropriate to call the city by the name its residents do: Derry.

Pogatchnik, Shawn. "Real IRA condemns queen's planned visit to Ireland." Associated Press. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110425/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nireland_ira_dissidents. 25 April 2011.