Always transparent, even in the face of Armageddon

Wednesday's page one story about Health Department inspections at Campus Restaurants was awesome. Carmen Forman did an excellent job reporting a sensitive topic. Great job.

However, there was some phrasing in the story that is a good opportunity to teach a lesson.

The story talks about "serious violations" multiple times. The problem isn't the word "violation" because it's a noun and it is factually accurate to call it a violation.

But the word "serious" brings up a new issue. "Serious" is an adjective and adjectives can be dangerous.

As a reader, I could be asking myself "who says these violations are serious"? Is it the reporter? Is it the document? Who says and why should I care? Without dictating where the word "serious" is coming from could jeopardize the message you are trying send.

So how do we fix this when a document or organization dictates something is serious? The best way to get around this if you can't write around the word "serious" (or explain how the tiered penalty system works) is to use quotations marks around the word. Putting quotes around the word tells the reader this information is coming directly from a source (a person or a document).

The argument could be made that without the quotation marks the word "serious" is still factually accurate. I agree. But putting the quotations around the word is more transparent and creates a more honest relationship between the sources, the journalist, the reader and the story.