Serious byline question

yes, but we all know mia can ride the "bicycle."

 

And your father probably won't.

When I worked for the AP, I went back home to Indianapolis to visit my parents, and my father, a coin collector, was raving about this story he read in the Star about some rare coins that were stolen. He wondered if I had heard about the story. I pointed to my byline and said, "Yeah, because I wrote it."

 

The best (fictional) byline story I heard was Jim Tom Pinch refusing to work at the New York Times because it wanted him to change his byline to James Thomas Pinch.

 

did he know Jones could suck a ...?

 

Absolutely, it's your byline and you can do whatever you want.

That said, it's pretentious as fucking hell.

 

At the risk (albeit a very, very small one) of outing myself using my regular handle, I'm using my real name for this one.

As you can see, I use the Jr. suffix on my byline. I did it for a pretty stupid reason. In college, I thought it would be one small thing that made my clips stand out from others. Not that anyone hires on what a byline looks like, but for some reason it'd make me stand out. I also drank quite a bit in college, so that should explain some of it.

But I liked it enough I decided to stick with it. Came in handy when I got to my first full-time job and found out a prominent member of the community had the same name I did.

I don't think anything you do with a byline is pretentious. It's not like I don't respond to people if they don't use the Jr. when addressing me.

However, I do get quite annoyed when people put a comma before the Jr. Even though it's AP style, the small amount of awards I've won as well as many credentials all have the comma before the Jr.

 

Actually did this during college for some time to make fun of a buddy who used his seriously.
Fun times.

 

I miss seeing George Arthur King III as a byline.

I also miss seeing the byline Buster Olney in the stuffy old NYTimes.

I always get a kick out of the occasional obit that says something like Howard Rance (Squirrel Nuts) McGee. Because none of his friends ever knew his real name was Howard. But they see that and say, "Damn, Squirrel Nuts died?"

 

Bill S. Preston, Esq. would beg to differ.

 

The few people who go by first initial and middle name or first name and middle initial have been called that throughout the newsroom. Some get pissed by that.
Two cases with women recently married (no not to each other). Photog kept her maiden name and reporter went the hyphenated way. May seem stupid, but a drawback of the hyphenated name is that unless the layout is at least a 5-on-6 format, her hyphenated name drops to a second line.
By PRISCILLA
NEWMAN-STEVENSON
Pittsville Press-Union

 

I have a pretty unique first name, so I think it was easy to tell that it was the same person. And, like I said, I use my maiden and married names with my first, so if there was anyone paying attention, I don't think there was a lot of confusion.

That is hilarious, and illustrates my previous point that people only notice who wrote something when they want to complain about it...