Recently on the @survivetvjobs Twitter line, there was a rather intense conversation about the words “apparently,” “reportedly” and “allegedly.”
A journalist argued that these words are fine to use instead of attribution. In fact he argued they are necessary to be conversational, so the copy will not be boring and make viewers turn away. Bottom line, no journalist would think that way and we would never see these words in copy, if they clearly were banned in newsrooms. But they are not. I hear each of these words more times than I can count when surveying newscasts, nationwide.
I can and have discussed why these words do not protect you.
For this article I will simply say that if you really think about it, you do not need “apparently,” “reportedly” or “allegedly” if you know the facts are true. For facts we do not know yet, or have partial information about, you attribute to whomever was the expert or authority who told you the partial information.
Let’s just be straight with each other. “Apparently,” “reportedly” and “allegedly” are not put into news copy to be conversational. They are used as crutches to couch that you do not understand something in the story, or just do not have the information. The use of these words says you are guessing. Educated guess or not, it just sounds sloppy. It’s not conversational. Conversational writing is clear. There is no room for a guess.
