Don't lose your voice online

Author Ralph Keyes this week rightly slammed news organizations for using cultural references in their news stories that leave many readers under the age of 50 in the dark. But do not rush to assume that the solution is to strip articles of metaphors and other references, which can help readers identify and understand the news. Instead, smart newsrooms should take a close look at their language, and make a stronger effort to deploy writers who, collectively, can use a broader range of cultural references to appeal to wider audience of readers.

Keyes called an over-dependence to decades-old references “retrotalk,” including comparisons with 1950s television characters, early 20th Century pop tunes and even antiquated farming techniques.

Journalists who lace their copy with such retro terms or names risk alienating those who are too young to get the allusions. Even common catch phrases that hearken back to earlier times may be puzzling to younger readers: stuck in a groove, 98-pound weakling, drop a dime, bigger than a breadbox, or a tough row to hoe. (As one giggling third-grader asked when his teacher used this one, “Isn’t ‘ho’ a bad word?”)

Keyes’ piece roiled the journalism Twitter community, some rushing to spread the word, others to criticize the criticism.

Count me among the fans of lively cultural references in news reporting and analysis. But also include me among those who have grown sick of reading repeated, stale references from a generation to which I do not belong.

One of my few remaining delights when reading the Los Angeles Times is Dan Neil’s automobile column. Neil, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his reviews, spices them with a wide range of cultural references, from 12-step programs to the ridiculous names of some of Los Angeles’ weathermen.

Neil’s use of references of metaphors enlivens his columns, providing me with some of the hardest belly-laughs I’ve had when reading the paper over the past few years, and sometimes sending me to Google to research just what the heck he’s writing about.

That’s engagement – when you’ve rewarded your readers so often that they are not only eager to read your work, but willing to spend extra time researching on their own to make sure they’ve wrung every datum of juicy, snarky goodness from it. If newspapers employed more writers like Dan Neil, the industry wouldn’t be in the mess it is now.

The trick, of course, is to use references in a fresh, engaging, enlightening way. That’s tough to do with the same crop or tired references aimed at baby boomers. To cite one example referenced by Keyes, I cringe to hear Rachel Maddow – a smart, fun GenX broadcaster – making reference to “Leave it to Beaver” characters. Please, Rachel, gimme a “Daria” reference instead.

The first writer for a news publication I read who embraced the culture of my generation, the so-called “Generation X,” was ESPN’s Bill Simmons. Frustrated with his inability to land a gig writing at one of the newspapers in his hometown of Boston, Simmons turned to the Web, writing columns for his own website, then for AOL’s Digital City. That work brought him to the attention of ESPN, which hired him to write for the sports network’s website.

In his columns, Simmons didn’t make comparisons with Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson or other Baby Boom icons. Instead, you’d be more likely to find references to “Beverly Hills 90210″ (the original version) and breakdowns comparing pro athletes to MTV reality show stars. Simmons’ references not only made his employer, ESPN, more relevant to an audience of readers that was then in their late teens to early 30s, he provided an affirmation to that audience that their cultural experience were relevant to a major media source.

In doing so, Simmons help inspire a generation of sports fans to believe that their experience mattered – which led many to go online and do the same as Simmons had, to write about sports in the context of their own lives, spawning a generation of sports bloggers, from Deadspin to The Big Lead. Say what you will about that (thank you, Buzz Bissinger), but Simmons engaged and motivated an audience with his reference-heavy writing. And what news organization wouldn’t want to inspire that level of passion in an audience?

So the problems isn’t the presence of cultural references, it is the use of those references. News organizations that limit themselves to references that precede the assassination of JFK ossify their audience, losing an opportunity to engage a new generation of readers, the way that Simmons did at ESPN nearly a decade ago. And they lose the opportunity to engage audiences from different ethics and racial heritages, restricting their customers to the old, tired and white.

The problem is not too many cultural references, it is too few: Too few writers using too few references from too narrow a cultural experience. Writers such a Simmons and Neil helped expand journalism’s palette, but readers demand far more, including more Gen Y, Millennial, female and international voices. An their demands should be satisfied.

Keyes appropriately tries and convicts news organizations for appealing to too narrow an audience. How ironic, then, that news organizations, threatened with a loss of advertising revenue and a crumbling national economy, are laying off so many newsroom voices at a time when they need to be adding them, to appeal to a diversifying readership that demands to be spoken to in the voices of their own cultures.