John E. McIntyre is an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

copy editor Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material (copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. ''The Chicago Manual of ...

. McIntyre is a cofounder and two-term president of the American Copy Editors Society.

Life and career

McIntyre was born in Kentucky and grew up in Elizaville, in Fleming County, Kentucky.John McIntyre: Night Content Production Manager.
''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...

'' He graduated from Fleming County High School in

Flemingsburg, Kentucky Flemingsburg is a home rule-class city in Fleming County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 2,658 at the 2010 census, down from 3,010 at the 2000 census. It is the seat of Fleming County. Geography Flemingsburg is located no ...

in 1969. He then earned a bachelor's degree in English from

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

in 1973. From 1973 to 1979 he attended

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

, earning a master's degree in English but leaving without completing his doctorate. From 1980 to 1986 McIntyre worked as a copy editor at '' The Cincinnati Enquirer''. He became a copy editor at ''

'' in 1986. On April 29, 2009, McIntyre was laid off by ''The Sun''. He was rehired in 2010 to serve as the newspaper's Night Content Production Manager. He retired from ''The Sun'' in 2021, after accepting a buyout from the newspaper's new owner

Alden Global Capital Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. Smith. Its managing director is Heath Freeman. By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. The company ...

. In 1997, McIntyre helped to found the American Copy Editors Society, and subsequently served as its president for two terms. McIntyre is also an affiliate adjunct instructor at Loyola College in Maryland. He published a parody video titled "Trigger Warning" for his students on Facebook in 2016, which warned them about the tedium and difficulty of the material. It was criticized by some students who felt that it trivialized trigger warnings. McIntyre maintains a

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

called "You Don't Say" on the ''Sun'' website, discussing a variety of topics including

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

usage, journalism, and copy editing. The blog received an average of 20,000 to 30,000 monthly pageviews in 2017. His online following grew after posting a video on the grammatical use of the

singular they Singular ''they'', along with its inflected or derivative forms, ''them'', ''their'', ''theirs'' and ''themselves'' (or ''themself''), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun. It typically occurs with an unspecified antecedent, in sentence ...

which received over 1 million views. His blog has weighed in on various topics related to grammar, such as the controversy over the trademarking of

Cafe Hon Cafe Hon was a restaurant in the Hampden, Baltimore, Hampden area of Baltimore, Maryland. History Opened by Denise Whiting in 1992, Cafe Hon takes its name from a common term of endearment (Hon (Baltimore), "hon" is an abbreviated version of the ...

and Weird Al's "

Word Crimes "Word Crimes" is a song by American musician "Weird Al" Yankovic from his fourteenth studio album, ''Mandatory Fun'' (2014). The song is a parody of the 2013 single " Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, featuring Pharrell Williams and T.I. The son ...

". He is the author of two books published by Apprentice House Press at Loyola University Maryland, ''The Old Editor Says: Maxims for Writing and Editing'' (2013) and ''Bad Advice: The Most Unreliable Counsel Available on grammar, Usage, and Writing'' (2020).

References

External links

''You Don't Say on Blogspot.com''
previous blog
You Don't Say column
via ''The Baltimore Sun,'' archive through January 2012
You Don't Say column
via ''The Baltimore Sun,'' archive February 2012 to present {{DEFAULTSORT:McIntyre, John American copy editors American bloggers The Baltimore Sun people People from Kentucky Michigan State University alumni Syracuse University alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) The Cincinnati Enquirer people 21st-century American non-fiction writers