On Deadline was compiled and edited by Mark Mahoney, editorial page editor of The Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y. If you have an innovations or inspiration you'd like to share with American Editor readers, please e-mail it to Mark at mahoney@poststar.com.

Winter 2009 Bad housekeeping seal of approval Teleconference with benefits Party on, congressman dude Hey, we’ll take it One for the good guys Yes, mr. (first name) president Bailout blackout Rotten onion

SURE THE INDUSTRY IS IN the dumper. But the buzz in actual newsrooms - where actual journalists are doing actual real journalist-type work - is all about the Associated Press' recent decision to change its style to require the first name of the U.S. president on first reference in stories.

OK, maybe it's not "the buzz." But it is moderately interesting to those of us in the business who care about that sort of thing. Any journalist since the middle of the last century grew up with the understanding that you don't give the president's first name on first reference. There's no need. There's only one president at a time - how can that be confusing?

But given the new international blending of its wire reports, the AP has decided to change the style, which apparently has been with us since the news service started referring to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on first reference as simply "President Roosevelt."

"We saw a need to standardize how we refer to the president, especially since the wire now services more of a global audience," Darrell Christian, a co-editor of the AP Stylebook, said by way of explanation. "Stories written overseas and filed directly to U.S. wires would have used first and last names, but stories going out of the U.S. would use the last names. ... We don't use (just) last names for heads of state in other countries, so we wanted to be consistent."

The change is so new that it doesn't even appear in the latest AP Stylebook. Ironically, President Barack Obama is the first to be affected by this "change."*