Journalists often don't think it through when they write or are handed a script to read. This leads to a lot of fodder for critics who catch this stuff. I caught a word that made me exclaim, "Duh!" And that lead me to search out some classic cases of parroting and cliche abuse.

Knowing what you're talking about and eliminating extraneous words are underutilized skills.

About the only place on Earth that you will hear a verbless sentence is on the news. In this episode, ABC World News Tonight getting clobbered. (That's a verebless sentence)

For nearly thirty years, many reporters have been using the wrong terminology for non-firearm weapons used for crowd control. Forever, many reporters have been using inflammatory words. There's no need for either.

Is A a word or a letter? And why is and used as a number?

Why do journalists keep saying Diddy? Seems a little too cute. Also, what's with anchors throwing in extra words and thanking reporters for reporting?

Nobody knows what someone thinks or how they feel. But many journalists seem to think they know. Why is that?

Why do so many journalists love to turn nouns into adjectives while putting people behind bars? It's not the way normal people talk.

The Problem: TV reporter interviews a witness who didn't witness anything, except a helicopter flying over the scene of a fatal accident in which a San Bernardino County, CA Sheriff's Deputy was killed.

The Fix: We explain how to avoid that and what to do instead.

It's best to avoid adding syllables to words, and mispronouncing the names of cities and people.