Talk:Melissa Lee (journalist)

American English should be retained here

An editor has twice changed the national variety of English from American English by changing "anchor" to "news presenter" and "hosts" to "presents". That change has been reverted and shouldn't be repeated because it violates that Wikipedia Manual of Style's policy on national varieties of English. That policy presents four guidelines. (1) Consistency within articles - The second paragraph uses the American spelling "honor" and the third paragraph uses the Americanism "hosts" rather than "presents" which is used in some other varieties of English. Therefore, American English should be retained in the first paragraph to maintain consistency. (2) Strong national ties to a topic - Melissa Lee is from the U.S. and works for a U.S. television channel. This favor American English. (3) Retaining the existing variety - The article used American English before the IP editor changed it to a different variety. (4) Opportunities for commonality - News presenter isn't a term that is used in the U.S. American readers are likely to be unfamiliar with it unless they've seen the term in non-U.S. sources. In some other varieties of English, anchor is not used. So neither version produces commonality. I have changed "anchor" to the phrase "news anchor" in an attempt at greater clarity. --JamesAM (talk) 19:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

This article is still being repeatedly edited to change American English terms to U.K. terms without any Talk page discussion (just edit summaries. "News presenter" is not a universal term - it's a nation specific term. In the U.S., from which Melissa Lee hails and where she works, "news anchor" (or simply "anchor" or "anchorwoman") are used. News presenter is not commonly used. It is a well established precedent that anchor is used to described U.S. news anchor consistent with WP:ENGVAR. The ledes in the articles about the three current network news anchors (Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charlie Gibson) all refer to them as anchors, not as presenters. The same is true about the ledes for all of the Big Three (Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings) as well as the short-term successors of the Big Three (Elizabeth Vargas, Bob Woodruff, Bob Schieffer). Under the current status quo, anchor is appropriate. I think the IP editor ought to seek to change WP:ENGVAR if he/she thinks all news anchors should be referred to as news presenters. --JamesAM (talk) 03:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion. Normally, I wouldn't respond until the second opinion has been clearly stated here on the Talk page, but, fortunately, the anon editor has stated his opinions quite clearly in the edit summaries. The editor's argument appears to be that "news anchor" is not, in fact, regular American English at all, but simply a colloquial term inappropriate for a serious article, and, moreover, one that may confuse readers. They offer the news presenter article as supporting evidence for this position.

In my opinion, the article quoted does not support this position, and "news anchor" does seem to be standard American English, and should therefore be used in the article per WP:ENGVAR. Indeed, the news presenter article has clearly stated that this is the regular term for at least the last twelve months (as far back as I searched), without any apparent dispute on that page. However, given the situation, I would suggest linking the term "news anchor" in this article to News presenter#News anchor just in case anyone else is confused by what it actually means. Although, personally, I'm British, and it didn't confuse me...Anaxial (talk) 07:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion. Linking to the relevant article and section is a sensible recommendation. --JamesAM (talk) 16:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I made the little change as the name <anchor> means different thing. In many places (including here in China - important as Melissa family) <presenter> is the word. I think maybe if some american people like <anchor> they need think it may is the same as <presenter> in your country but also the only word in others. The word <anchor> just puzzle people and Wikipedia is for everyone of world not just american. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.141.183.162 (talk) 04:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

The notion that articles about Chinese-Americans should use non-American English spellings isn't anywhere in the WP:ENGVAR policy. There's no basis for that practice. When an article has a strong tie to a particular English-speaking country (in this case, the U.S.). In the U.S., anchor is the regular term. The use of "anchor" in articles in the numerous American people is an uncontroversial practice at wikipedia, but for some reason this particular obscure anchor article has been a target for edit warring. Using presenter to refer to a news anchor is obscure in the U.S.; American readers may misinterpret the term to mean sponsor (commercial) or producer. Furthermore, news anchor is already wikilinked to avoid the possibility of confusion by those who prefer presenter. With that wikilink, there's no reason anyone should be confused. Under the national varieties of English policy, the national varieties are treated equally and consistently. So American English is not treated with an inferior status even though other readers may prefer their own national varieties. --JamesAM (talk) 05:02, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Look at the articles for the three main U.S. national network nightly newcasts (World News with Charles Gibson, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News). All three use the U.S. term "anchor" rather than the "present" consistent with WP:ENGVAR. That practice has stuck on those highly trafficked pages. The text of this page was originally, logically written to be consistent with that policy and practice. It doesn't make sense to idiosyncratic impose British or Australian or whatever usage on this one particular article. --JamesAM (talk) 05:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Please not change this word as you puzzle people. This is not your writing but for every person in every country.