Relevance

   Journalism Rule Number One: Get the name right.

   People often care little what you write about them, as long as you spell the name right. Descriptive information, such as age, occupation, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or even gender may not be relevant to the story.

   Rule Number Two: Use only information about the subject relevant to the story.

   Hint: The secret of good writing is not in knowing what to put in, but in knowing what to leave out.

   There was a time when race and ethnicity were routinely used in newspaper reports, relevant or not. At the time, of course, many did believe terms like Negro, Jew, Irish, Polish, etc. were somehow relevant. That practice began to change in the 1950s as the civil rights movement took root and grew. Eventually, the guideline became one of relevance, such as the description of a suspect sought by police.
   Otherwise, to describe a person as a 30-year-old Irish Catholic plumber, or as a 19-year-old black high school dropout, or as a 25-year-old unemployed journalist, or as a Muslim physician or as a Jewish baker, may have little or no relevance to the story. Likewise, a woman's age and hair color will have no relevance to her capability as a corporate executive.

   In any case, journalistic awareness of these issues began to build some decades ago. However, this awareness is not as widespread as it should be, and to continue to insert irrelevant information into news stories can only feed the biases and bigotry of certain readers.