Some might recall that I shared with this group a note I sent to Kenneth
Chang of the New York Times asking him to preserve metric units in his
reports on NASA. He replied saying that he'd love to see the US convert,
but that he's bound by the NYT style manual, which like AP's asks
journalists to "generally" convert units from metric.
Since then, I've been collecting instances in the NY Times that use
unconverted metric units (with no parenthetical US units). I'll eventually
send these off to Ken to let him know that his employer apparently allows
some journalistic discretion on this issue.
Unconverted metric units, while not the norm, are actually remarkable common
in the NY Times. I've found about four or five instances just in the last
30 days. My favorite: "Approximately three kilograms of forage fish go to
produce one kilogram of farmed salmon", from a Nov 15 article by Mark
Bittman. He could have used any unit, or even just the word unit, but he
used kilogram.
So journalists do have discretion, and we should continue to pressure them.
--------------------------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2008 9:37 AM
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:42067] Water in Liters
I notice that the Associated Press reports that urine collected in the
Space Station is being purified and collected in one liter containers for
return to earth for testing. The AP did *no* conversion to older units.
The Associated Press *can* retain original metric units in spite of the AP
Style Manual calling for adulteration.
Gene Mechtly
