Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels is catching beaucoup heat for issuing a memo encouraging the struggling company's newsreaders to improve their job performance by eliminating approximately 120 annoying, lame, overused, or trite words and expressions from their on-air vocabularies.

I don't get it. What's the beef?

Complaints about Michaels' list of forbidden words focus on the idea that because the company is struggling to emerge from bankruptcy, the CEO should have better things to do than badger  the on-air "talent." Skunk words like "censorship" have been sneaking around. Really?

Am I wrong in thinking that the business of a news organization is to broadcast the news? Then how can it be trivial or beside the point to insist that those charged with communicating actually practice communication? As the Tribune Company struggles to reestablish itself financially, the time would seem right for it to get back to basics.

As the great George Orwell pointed out in the beautiful and elegant essay, "Politics and the English Language,"

"Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes."

When Orwell talks about the "half-conscious belief" in what language is, he's telling us that that's what language really is NOT. Language is not merely a "natural growth." We DO shape it for our own purposes. The way we use words shapes, limits, defines and either elevates or debases the way we think; one has only to think of Orwell's masterpiece 1984 to realize that that was the author's great message.

Here are the words Michaels would eliminate, and I cannot find fault with one of them:

• “Flee” meaning “run away”
• “Good” or “bad” news
• “Laud” meaning “praise”
• “Seek” meaning “look for”
• “Some” meaning “about”
• “Two to one margin” . . . “Two to one” is a ratio, not a margin. A margin is measured in points. It’s not a ratio.
• “Yesterday” in a lead sentence
• “Youth” meaning “child”
• 5 a.m. in the morning
• After the break
• After these commercial messages
• Aftermath
• All of you
• Allegations
• Alleged
• Area residents
• As expected
• At risk
• At this point in time
• Authorities
• Auto accident
• Bare naked
• Behind bars
• Behind closed doors
• Behind the podium (you mean lecturn) [sic]
• Best kept secret
• Campaign trail
• Clash with police
• Close proximity
• Complete surprise
• Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use
• Death toll
• Definitely possible
• Diva
• Down in (location)
• Down there
• Dubbaya when you mean double you
• Everybody (when referring to the audience)
• Eye Rack or Eye Ran
• False pretenses
• Famed
• Fatal death
• Fled on foot
• Folks
• Giving 110%
• Going forward
• Gunman, especially lone gunman
• Guys
• Hunnert when you mean hundred
• Icon
• In a surprise move
• In harm’s way
• In other news
• In the wake of (unless it’s a boating story)
• Incarcerated
• Informed sources say . . .
• Killing spree
• Legendary
• Lend a helping hand
• Literally
• Lucky to be alive
• Manhunt
• Marred
• Medical hospital
• Mother of all (anything)
• Motorist
• Mute point. (It’s moot point, but don’t say that either)
• Near miss
• No brainer
• Officials
• Our top story tonight
• Out in (location)
• Out there
• Over in
• Pedestrian
• Perfect storm
• Perished
• Perpetrator
• Plagued
• Really
• Reeling
• Reportedly
• Seek
• Senseless murder
• Shots rang out
• Shower activity
• Sketchy details
• Some (meaning about)
• Some of you
• Sources say . . .
• Speaking out
• Stay tuned
• The fact of the matter
• Those of you
• Thus
• Time for a break
• To be fair
• Torrential rain
• Touch base
• Under fire
• Under siege
• Underwent surgery
• Undisclosed
• Undocumented alien
• Unrest
• Untimely death
• Up in (location)
• Up there
• Utilize (you mean use)
• Vehicle
• We’ll be right back
• Welcome back
• Welcome back everybody
• We’ll be back
• Went terribly wrong
• We’re back
• White stuff
• World class
• You folks

His newsreaders would do well, not only to follow Michaels' dictates, but to spend some time re-reading their Orwell, and memorizing the great man's advice:  

"I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article."

For the "five specimens," do yourself a favor and Google Politics and the English Language. You'll be, to coin a phrase, "glad you did."