Tuesday, February 22, 2005

In praise of the Associated Press Stylebook

Public Relations Tactics

Why has the Stylebook become indispensable to so many people?

Goldstein: That's a tough one. I think primarily because of the AP itself, which is an indispensable news service to anybody who prints the news. We just have that outreach to begin with. And there aren't any real stylebooks that do it on a national basis the way we do. There are local stylebooks — the New York Times has its own; many newspapers have their own. They're all pretty much based on ours. But what we're doing is finding the common denominator. We're finding the areas that work best throughout journalism, rather than regionally or even locally. So I think the AP Stylebook has become almost a textbook for journalism students, and it carries on because we keep it up-to-date and continue improving, enhancing and expanding it.


This is a very handy tool for any writer.

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