Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

Warren Buffet called him “the best business editor I’ve ever seen.”  On Sunday, The New York Times published a rousing tribute to his smarts and passion.  Below please see quotes from Jim Michaels, late editor of Forbes.  He’s talking (barking?) about business reporting, but his advice really applies to just about every kind of content.  The link and the story itself are printed below the select quotes.  Worth a read …
 “Too bloody complicated. That’s not writing. Make it simple and interesting. That’s writing.”

 “The character is deader than a dodo. Can’t (the writer) inject a little life without adding 10,000 words?”

“A good story turned into oatmeal by bad organization.”

“Please fix this quickest. It lacks most of the ingredients of a Forbes story. The quotes are room emptiers.”

“If I can’t stay awake editing this, how can a reader stay awake reading it? What’s the point? If it has a point, maybe we can make a story of it.”

“I can’t make head nor tail of this. There’s a story buried in all this confusion, but I can’t find it. Fix it or kill it.”

 “This is exactly the sort of lazy writer jargon that will put us out of business. Please use the rich resources of the English language.”

 “Here’s another one I can’t understand without help from a lawyer and accountant.”

“This is more an essay as written than a Forbes article. It badly needs the concrete images, the real people that will anchor it to reality. It’s called shoe-leather reporting.”