Verbosity

A reporter's job is to tell a story, not to win a court case.

When in doubt, rephrase.

   Writing manuals all tout the advantage of active verbs over the passive, and stress the advantages of brevity. Here's an example that took verbosity to an extreme:
   Township officials "have authorized entering into agreement of sale for the purchase" of approximately 62.8 acres. That's ten words to say what three would have done better: "plan to buy." And if you insist on getting into lawyerly CYA phrasing, just in case the agreement doesn't happen, you can put that into another sentence or paragraph.
   On the issue of lawyer-talk, surveyors may cover their legal butts by saying "approximately" but for the rest of us, 62.8 is a fairly exact number. For news writers, it's enough to say "nearly 63 acres" or "more than 62 acres."
   In all, the errant phrase was part of a 32-word suitcase sentence that packed everything into a single opening. A better way to communicate would be to use two short sentences.
News writers are not always bound by legalistic precision. Sometimes, approximations make for faster and better communication.