Hats off to the Smithsonian ……..

I won’t be alone in getting tired of the style of many online media stories.

Passing faces, Paris, 1981

You get hooked by the title, but then must wade through acres of text, often repeating what has already been written before you get to the bit that explains the title and fully tells the story.

Which may or may not be linked to the adverts which are embedded every so often.

Now I know that it is the adverts that sustain the economic model of online media, but just give me a couple sentences at the beginning which anchor the headline with some detail.

And that is what Mr. Thorsberg gave me. In the opening lines I got a more precise date, a clear location for the ship’s lasting resting place and who made the discovery. *

At which point I had the option to discard the article or carry on and carry on I did.

At the end of the 270-word piece, I knew all I wanted to know, with the option of following up elsewhere.

Somewhere I am sure there will be a quote by George Orwell on journalism which talks about the skill of informing the reader in clear prose and getting to the point quickly.

And here I remember an old science colleague who summed yp his approach to journalism ….. “I read the introduction and the conclusion which pretty much informs me if I want to read the rest”.**

Of course, there has to be style and elegance in the way the article is written, but there has be an attention to telling me what I am about to read.

At which point I confess I have been known to ramble on, introduce material which has only a slight connection to the main story, but I am trying to be more precise.

So hats off to the Smithsonian.

Picture; And the picture which has nothing to do with the story, Passing faces, Paris, 1981, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*In the Muddy Banks of North Carolina, Student Archaeologists May Have Discovered the Remnants of a Centuries-Old Spanish Ship, Christian Thorsberg,

Smithsonian Magazine, August 12, 2025, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/timber-from-colonial-era-spanish-ship-among-four-shipwrecks-discovered-in-north-carolina-180987139

**Denis Eboral, 1982