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Being the Curmudgeon
I sent an email to the metro editor at the San Antonio Express-News this morning, about the following passage from an article about a board dispute at a local school district. Quote from the article:
Rep. Roland Gutierrez wrote a letter to Sen. Flores, which he shared on Twitter, calling the senator’s efforts to reign in the South San board “ill-conceived, ill-advised, and poorly received by your peers.”
I had read the article in my dead-tree edition, then went and looked at it online. The mistake was there, and the online headline included it.
I commented on it and the same day the headline was changed, but today, nine days later, the mistake remained in the text of the article so I emailed the metro editor. I’ll be interested to see how long it takes for it to be fixed.
Is it too much to expect a reporter to know the difference in words like “reign” and “rein?” Is it an autocorrect or spellcheck sort of error? I have seen many people write “free reign” when I am pretty sure they meant “free rein.” And the other thing I wonder is, why use a word when you really don’t know the meaning? Seeking comments from newsmen. (James.)
Like I said in the title, I know it’s sort of curmudgeonly to point it out but otherwise how will it ever get better?
Published in General
It’s a shoe-in for misteak of the week.
Longtime editor here and I feel your pain. Another misuse that always makes me chuckle is when someone “pours over” a book, thus ruining its pages.
I was told once, after encouraging someone to watch for things like your example, “I don’t have time for that sort of thing.” When you show such persons an error, no matter how politely and gently, and now matter that your motives are trying to help them succeed – to most you are just an annoyance. But your last sentence is pretty much correct.
I don’t bother correcting unless I want the other to do well. Newspapers? MSM? Not so much.
Or even of the weak!
I have no idea, but does English have an unusually large number of homophones?
And I’ll bet this thread would feel like non-stop gratuitous micro aggressions to an average progressive millennial.
Our local paper is so chock full of mistakes, there’s no use in pointing them out because they might offer me a job as editor. My favorite was a local reporter who covered an accident, then wrote about how one car ended up in the “medium”. She meant “median” . . .
It’s not going to get better.
Are you a homophonophobic?
Paranormal journalism.
For some reason the one that gets me is “hoard” and “horde”.
Also, how many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?
I have heard that, in the current wave of newspaper cutbacks, the editorial staff is the first to go. I have also noticed that that seems to be the case.
It’s probably like an athletic playing down to his or her competition.
From what I read in news media, yes it is too much to expect.
If you don’t put the breaks on, Aisle have to bare witness to your homophonophobia. Please don’t become a cereal offender in this manor.
5 hours and no change. I always figured editors needed to work weekends, but I suspect standards have slipped all across the newsroom.
I sent an email to the local (small town) paper about misusing “alumni” and to their credit every time since they use alumnus, alumna, and alumni correctly. I also emailed the editor once when he wrote an editorial about “imminent domain” and said it repeatedly. Never heard back about that one.
Cavalry vs. Calvary. Aargh!
Furthermore, our paper not only reprints AP stories without checking them (AP stories also have mistakes), but they will truncate an article mid-sentence when they run out of room on the page. No attempt to rewrite and make a sentence end properly:
“After his arrest, Smith’s relatives gathered outside the”
I wouldn’t want to have that affect.
It may be curmudgeonly, but presumably the point of writing those articles is to communicate something to an audience. If the writers make it hard for the reader to understand, the readers will stop reading, and then there’s no point in the writers writing.
The last numbers I can find show the paper with several hundred thousand readers. I wonder how many never noticed?
And where’s that blasted plain?
Sure, their editors may not be able to spot mistakes anymore, but newspapers still have their spotless ethical record to fall back on.
One gets the feeling many reporters didn’t start with the right children’s books.
Eye agree.
In plain sight . . .
You blew that one, Stad. I’m sure you meant to say “In plane site.”
LOL you’re right! I thought of that, but then I got distracted when a cat rubbed my legs. Short attention spans come with age.
Now, what were we talking about?
Its not just newspapers. I had a young engineer working for me who would hand in a report which he clearly hadn’t proofread. (yes – engineers should be able to write so their thoughts can be understood) I would point out to him that if he couldn’t be bothered to review his own work, why should I – or anyone else – put any faith in it.
Never worked.
Been there. Done that. Never worked for me, either.