Friday, January 30, 2009

I Want to Be a Riter

The big DeSoto County feature this morning is John Lawhorne's report of a career day for students. Middle school kids visited businesses and shadowed workers. It was probably inevitable that some would tour the newspaper office. Lawhorne writes:
Eighth-grader [young man's name] had expressed an interest in becoming an writer. [Young woman's name] wanted to explore what it would be to work as a cartoonist.
The incorrect indefinite article and the missing half of the predicate verb aren't enough. Lawhorne also demonstrates that neither pronoun control nor graceful composition is required to write a daily story:
[Young man's name] said he thought his experience with Wilson was 'cool.' He said he thought he was the only one who liked cartoons. ... Blosser and other particpating businesses later took their respective students to lunch.
Old Word Wolf's initials spell OWW for a reason. The language arts teachers did both youngsters a disservice when they sent the kids to cover to this beat.

2 comments:

  1. This is not funny. It is sad. I remember watching interns at the Sun, who by the end of the summer were laughing at the paper and some of the staff. Even as college students they recognize the incompetence.

    People at SCMG, like Mr. Lawhorne appear to have no training, no pride in their work, no talent or no conscience.Making matters worse,first where was the editor and then where was the copy editor to fix this error.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Potential interns would be well advised not to waste their time at any SCMG paper unless it's to gather material for a book later on. They should know they will receive no guidance or mentoring. Even staff writers comment that they get no guidance from their editors on improving their writing. Friends don't let friends intern at SCMG.

    ReplyDelete