Voice and Style

I particularly liked how Kurt Vonnegut phrased one of his opening lines in reference to Newspaper Reporters and Technical Writers and what their “voice” is: “…Freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers.”
It’s true. It’s almost impossible to write without imposing your personal views on every reader. Sometimes you end up writing a paper that was supposed to be informative and unbiased, and you come up with some completely left-wing or right-wing paper. By then, it’s too late. You’ve already taken sides and you’ve been arguing the topic in your head for days. We’re constantly pushing our ideals and opinions on others, and it’s hard to separate that from our writing.
It kind of makes me respect reporters (read: HONEST reporters and reporters for stations or newspapers that deliver REAL news) and those people that make textbooks. They either focus intently on just delivering facts and evidence, or they were born without decision-making skills. But I think it’s the first one. These people ignore the sides, and pick out the truth in each argument. They paste it together in some artistic and understandable way, tediously, in order to make a single article so that the reader may develop his or her own opinion. Or, they pick apart a single argument from just one side. They may give you a thousand facts about Obama, good or bad, and completely ignore McCain. They may do just the opposite. They may showcase both. Either way, these reporters and writers do their job without their opinion all over it. They do it without saying “I think…” or going into some anecdote about their lives long ago. It’s a hard thing to accomplish, I could imagine.
So, Mr. Vonnegut, these people aren’t the “Freaks” in your world of writers. These people are the honest. These people are the ones who take themselves out of the limelight and move it onto the truth. These people aren’t the “Freaks”. These people are GOOD writers.