TRUMP KEEPS SCREAMING AT US IN ALL CAPS. Reporters Shouldn’t.

Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

One of the unspoken rules and grammatically grotesque assumptions of news reporting in the Trump era is that DONALD TRUMP writes EVERYONE’S capitalization style guides, and that the ticktock of impeachment and political campaigns isn’t enough to keep READERS reading. Scandal fatigue? Get the smelling salts. The strong stuff. The CAPS LOCK. How else to inform READERS than by INTREPID JOURNALISTS capping people’s names—or random words—in otherwise fine tweets? Reporters everywhere, keep up the (periodically) good work, but keep down the damn caps. Desperate times do not call for desperate capitalization. Save it for a truly shattering headline.

Have we learned nothing from history? Scream at readers long enough in caps and it becomes the register from which a higher register must be measured. We need to keep naming names and taking names. Not all-capsing them.

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate