Now that Lester Holt is no longer a temp, it’s time for a quality-review board—you (and I)—to look at scripts he has broadcast since he moved up to full-time anchoring on NBC’s “Nightly News” on June 22.

Let’s not judge him by his personality or his performance. And let’s not judge him by his delivery, only by what he delivers.

In this checkup, it makes no difference whether the scripts he has read on the air were written by him or by an associate. By broadcasting them, he has accepted them as his own. So let’s take a look at excerpts from several scripts he presented on recent (6:30 p.m. ET) newscasts:

July 14: “Tonight, breaking news: Terror in Tennessee. Four Marines murdered in a shooting rampage at two military recruiting centers. The gunman killed after committing what authorities say is an act of domestic terrorism.” Breaking news? The news was already long broken. More than six hours earlier, at 11:53 a.m., the AP had tweeted, “BREAKING: U.S. official: 5 dead in Tennessee shooting, including 4 Marines and sole gunman.” Holt’s “the gunman killed” (instead of the “gunman was killed”) suggests that the gunman went on to kill someone else.

July 22: “… a simple traffic stop landed a woman in a Texas jail, where she was later found hanged to death.” Hanged to death? Odds bodkins! If someone has been hanged, she is dead. (Other verbs also encompass death; the grammarian Mona Scott James lists asphyxiate, drown, electrocute, suffocate, strangle.)

July 27: “That’s because authorities say his son is the real person responsible for a deadly hit-and-run.” Should be fatal hit-and-run. Deadly means causing death or capable of causing death. Real person? The script might have meant, “His son is the person really responsible….” Or did the script mean the driver was a real person, not a cyborg?

July 29: “And later, a story you will love….” No, I won’t. Please don’t tell me how you think I’m going to react.

July 22: “Trump’s money: new disclosures tonight about how much he has and where it is coming from.” Another deceptive tonight. There were no disclosures that night. Six and a half hours earlier, Business Insider posted a long article about Trump’s 92-page financial disclosure—at 12:56 p.m.

July 10: “An absolutely gut-wrenching story out of Detroit tonight, a disgraced cancer doctor sentenced to 45 years in prison, accused of bilking tens of millions of dollars from the federal government for unnecessary cancer treatments.” Stories don’t come out of Detroit; they come from Detroit. And no one bilks money; crooks bilk people.

July 29: “That officer turning himself in tonight.” That sentence fragment needs a finite verb, one with a tense. Correct: “That officer turned himself in tonight.” Holt’s use of a participle there is not conversational, doesn’t say what needs to be said, and is not sound English. Yet Holt presents a lot of scripts that rely on participles, scripts without true verbs. If I may quote myself: “Nouns are the bones that give a sentence body. But verbs are the muscles that make it go.” Participles don’t do the job.

July 16: “Government scientists say that surface temperatures are warmer than they have ever been recorded across the globe.” Should be around the globe, not across the globe. Better: “Government scientists say surface temperatures are higher than ever recorded anywhere.”

July 29: “Breaking news tonight: That mystery [mysterious] wreckage from a large airplane discovered washing ashore on an island in the Indian Ocean.” But DailyMail.com posted a story about the wreckage and said the time was 12:03 a.m. ET, more than 18 hours before Holt called it breaking news. His words are hard to fathom. When the wreckage was found, it was not washing ashore; it had already washed ashore. The British Express ran the news at 2:49 p.m. ET. A former NBC Newsman, Charles Coates, who wrote for Huntley, Brinkley, Chancellor, and Brokaw, said Holt’s language in the lead-in “makes no sense at all.”

July 29: “Video and photos of a large piece of plane wreckage found on a remote island in the Indian Ocean are carefully being scrutinized.” Carefully … scrutinized is redundant. Scrutinize means to examine carefully.

July 9: “Finally tonight, for a lot of us, these pictures [of sharks] around me are about as near as we’d like to get to a shark, but then there are people who are compelled to satisfy their curiosity about these imposing creatures by getting very up close and personal….” Up close and personal is a cliché. Very up close? Very odd.

July 15: “Until now, Pluto was nothing but a blur at the end of our solar system, but striking new photos released today from the New Horizons probe are getting us up close and personal in a way we’ve never seen before…..” Up close and personal is also too hoary to use.

July 14: “But now, 85 years after it was first discovered, Pluto is getting its close-up.” First discovered is redundant. Discover means “to be the first to find out, see or know about.” In the film “Sunset Boulevard,” the actress Gloria Swanson said,” “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” Since then, getting its close-up has been used so often that it has become a cliché.

July 27: “And with 16 candidates competing for a spot on the debate stage, the war of words is escalating.” Why not say they’re competing for 10 spots on the stage? War of words is a cliché. Since the English poet Alexander Pope coined it in 1725, it has been worked to a pulp. The Washington Post says war of words is worse if followed by is heating up. Avoid clichés like the plague—which itself is a cliché. As the writer William Safire used to say, “They’re old hat.”

June 26: “Another major story still developing tonight, three terror attacks today on three different continents.” Of course, they’re different. They’re all different. The first three can be deleted. Major? A major word on “Nightly News”—and other network evening newscasts. And morning newscasts. Weekends, too. Not to mention local newscasts.

July 2: “Of course, by now we all know that what happened at the Washington Navy Yard this morning was a false alarm.” We all know? Not I. Not even me.

June 12: “Good evening. Our top story is breaking as we come on the air….A suspected accomplice in the New York prison break is now under arrest. Joyce Mitchell, a prison worker who police say….” But almost four hours earlier, at 2:49 p.m., NBC News itself tweeted: “BREAKING: Joyce Mitchell arrested in New York prison escape.”

July 1: “He was able to convince the British government to let them into the country.” He persuaded them to do that. A person persuades someone to do something; or convinces her of something. Or convinces her that….Convince to isn’t illegal, but it is off limits.

July 2: “Tonight, there are no plans to close down beaches along the North Carolina coastline this holiday weekend despite a recent rash of shark attacks.” That negative approach reminds me of the imaginary headline “No One Hurt in No Plane Crash.” Better: “Shark attacks on North Carolina’s coast have recently injured XX people, but the state says it has no plans to close any beaches on this holiday weekend.”

July 2: “Tonight, five years after one of the worst environmental disasters this country has ever seen, BP has agreed to pay a record 18 point 7 billion dollars….” Another shady tonight. The NBC correspondent on the story said, accurately, “This morning, at simultaneous news conferences, state officials called it a major achievement.” NPR posted the story at 10:01 a.m.

July 29: “A murder indictment handed down today against a University of Cincinnati police officer….” Indictments are handed up, not down. In another “Nightly” story, a correspondent spoke of a sworn deposition. Depositions are born sworn. If a document is not sworn, it’s not a deposition. (“Don’t get it right,” the humorist James Thurber once said, “just get it written.”)

Yes, Holt’s work was ready for appraisal—but not for praise.

© Mervin Block 2015

Now that Lester Holt is no longer a temp, it’s time for a quality-review board—you (and I)—to look at scripts he has broadcast since he moved up to full-time anchoring on NBC’s “Nightly News” on June 22.

Let’s not judge him by his personality or his performance. And let’s not judge him by his delivery, only by what he delivers.

In this checkup, it makes no difference whether the scripts he has read on the air were written by him or by an associate. By broadcasting them, he has accepted them as his own. So let’s take a look at excerpts from several scripts he presented on recent (6:30 p.m. ET) newscasts:

July 14: “Tonight, breaking news: Terror in Tennessee. Four Marines murdered in a shooting rampage at two military recruiting centers. The gunman killed after committing what authorities say is an act of domestic terrorism.” Breaking news? The news was already long broken. More than six hours earlier, at 11:53 a.m., the AP had tweeted, “BREAKING: U.S. official: 5 dead in Tennessee shooting, including 4 Marines and sole gunman.” Holt’s “the gunman killed” (instead of the “gunman was killed”) suggests that the gunman went on to kill someone else.

July 22: “… a simple traffic stop landed a woman in a Texas jail, where she was later found hanged to death.” Hanged to death? Odds bodkins! If someone has been hanged, she is dead. (Other verbs also encompass death; the grammarian Mona Scott James lists asphyxiate, drown, electrocute, suffocate, strangle.)

July 27: “That’s because authorities say his son is the real person responsible for a deadly hit-and-run.” Should be fatal hit-and-run. Deadly means causing death or capable of causing death. Real person? The script might have meant, “His son is the person really responsible….” Or did the script mean the driver was a real person, not a cyborg?

July 29: “And later, a story you will love….” No, I won’t. Please don’t tell me how you think I’m going to react.

July 22: “Trump’s money: new disclosures tonight about how much he has and where it is coming from.” Another deceptive tonight. There were no disclosures that night. Six and a half hours earlier, Business Insider posted a long article about Trump’s 92-page financial disclosure—at 12:56 p.m.

July 10: “An absolutely gut-wrenching story out of Detroit tonight, a disgraced cancer doctor sentenced to 45 years in prison, accused of bilking tens of millions of dollars from the federal government for unnecessary cancer treatments.” Stories don’t come out of Detroit; they come from Detroit. And no one bilks money; crooks bilk people.

July 29: “That officer turning himself in tonight.” That sentence fragment needs a finite verb, one with a tense. Correct: “That officer turned himself in tonight.” Holt’s use of a participle there is not conversational, doesn’t say what needs to be said, and is not sound English. Yet Holt presents a lot of scripts that rely on participles, scripts without true verbs. If I may quote myself: “Nouns are the bones that give a sentence body. But verbs are the muscles that make it go.” Participles don’t do the job.

July 16: “Government scientists say that surface temperatures are warmer than they have ever been recorded across the globe.” Should be around the globe, not across the globe. Better: “Government scientists say surface temperatures are higher than ever recorded anywhere.”

July 29: “Breaking news tonight: That mystery [mysterious] wreckage from a large airplane discovered washing ashore on an island in the Indian Ocean.” But DailyMail.com posted a story about the wreckage and said the time was 12:03 a.m. ET, more than 18 hours before Holt called it breaking news. His words are hard to fathom. When the wreckage was found, it was not washing ashore; it had already washed ashore. The British Express ran the news at 2:49 p.m. ET. A former NBC Newsman, Charles Coates, who wrote for Huntley, Brinkley, Chancellor, and Brokaw, said Holt’s language in the lead-in “makes no sense at all.”

July 29: “Video and photos of a large piece of plane wreckage found on a remote island in the Indian Ocean are carefully being scrutinized.” Carefully … scrutinized is redundant. Scrutinize means to examine carefully.

July 9: “Finally tonight, for a lot of us, these pictures [of sharks] around me are about as near as we’d like to get to a shark, but then there are people who are compelled to satisfy their curiosity about these imposing creatures by getting very up close and personal….” Up close and personal is a cliché. Very up close? Very odd.

July 15: “Until now, Pluto was nothing but a blur at the end of our solar system, but striking new photos released today from the New Horizons probe are getting us up close and personal in a way we’ve never seen before…..” Up close and personal is also too hoary to use.

July 14: “But now, 85 years after it was first discovered, Pluto is getting its close-up.” First discovered is redundant. Discover means “to be the first to find out, see or know about.” In the film “Sunset Boulevard,” the actress Gloria Swanson said,” “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” Since then, getting its close-up has been used so often that it has become a cliché.

July 27: “And with 16 candidates competing for a spot on the debate stage, the war of words is escalating.” Why not say they’re competing for 10 spots on the stage? War of words is a cliché. Since the English poet Alexander Pope coined it in 1725, it has been worked to a pulp. The Washington Post says war of words is worse if followed by is heating up. Avoid clichés like the plague—which itself is a cliché. As the writer William Safire used to say, “They’re old hat.”

June 26: “Another major story still developing tonight, three terror attacks today on three different continents.” Of course, they’re different. They’re all different. The first three can be deleted. Major? A major word on “Nightly News”—and other network evening newscasts. And morning newscasts. Weekends, too. Not to mention local newscasts.

July 2: “Of course, by now we all know that what happened at the Washington Navy Yard this morning was a false alarm.” We all know? Not I. Not even me.

June 12: “Good evening. Our top story is breaking as we come on the air….A suspected accomplice in the New York prison break is now under arrest. Joyce Mitchell, a prison worker who police say….” But almost four hours earlier, at 2:49 p.m., NBC News itself tweeted: “BREAKING: Joyce Mitchell arrested in New York prison escape.”

July 1: “He was able to convince the British government to let them into the country.” He persuaded them to do that. A person persuades someone to do something; or convinces her of something. Or convinces her that….Convince to isn’t illegal, but it is off limits.

July 2: “Tonight, there are no plans to close down beaches along the North Carolina coastline this holiday weekend despite a recent rash of shark attacks.” That negative approach reminds me of the imaginary headline “No One Hurt in No Plane Crash.” Better: “Shark attacks on North Carolina’s coast have recently injured XX people, but the state says it has no plans to close any beaches on this holiday weekend.”

July 2: “Tonight, five years after one of the worst environmental disasters this country has ever seen, BP has agreed to pay a record 18 point 7 billion dollars….” Another shady tonight. The NBC correspondent on the story said, accurately, “This morning, at simultaneous news conferences, state officials called it a major achievement.” NPR posted the story at 10:01 a.m.

July 29: “A murder indictment handed down today against a University of Cincinnati police officer….” Indictments are handed up, not down. In another “Nightly” story, a correspondent spoke of a sworn deposition. Depositions are born sworn. If a document is not sworn, it’s not a deposition. (“Don’t get it right,” the humorist James Thurber once said, “just get it written.”)

Yes, Holt’s work was ready for appraisal—but not for praise.

© Mervin Block 2015