Let Readers Draw Their Own Unwarranted Conclusions

This morning's front page, 7-inch filler, lower right, tells Old Word Wolf that grapes are good for her heart.

That's what a second-person pronoun does. "You" means the reader. And in this case that would be moi heart. Well, as the names featured on the left rail know, OWW doesn't have a heart.

Equally important is another minor detail -- that quaint idea that a headline accurately reflects the story. The article says nothing about human or Old Wolf hearts. The words -- read 'em -- are devoted solely to rat hearts, and rat hearts in a Michigan laboratory, at that.

Copy editors page designers layout artists Headline slappers, heed: Your (yes, that would be you) job is to report what the story says. It's the reader's job to draw baseless conclusions.

Before we move on, note the helpful picture of this rare fruit.

While we're on the front page, check out what's framing the mast: a color photo of Sandra Bullock from head to boob, a red-letter, three-line teaser about her marito-parental status, a refer to page 10. This would be fine if you -- yes, that would be you, Sun Group -- were our very own local National Inquirer or Variety, or even People Magazine, from where this who-cares-leave-the-movie-star-alone item has been lifted. Silly silly us. We thought we were reading a southwest Florida regional newspaper.

Today's Op-Ed Headline

The One and The Only ...

Week after week, Charlotte Sun demonstrates its institutional scorn for good old fashioned copy editing. Obviously silly and erroneous stories fill space with nary a blush from the real people who go to work every day and style themselves as old fashioned newsers or reporters working a beat. Accuracy? How quaint!

Stories run with obvious errors, hot off the wire. Although the AP regularly runs corrections to its stories, nary a one ever appears in the Sun. From paginator to publisher, pre-written headlines are considered good to go: no time wasted reading the story and doing better; no effort wasted sorting Charlotte, N.C., from Port Charlotte. If it starts with Ch- and end with -otte, run it. But I digress.

Today's posts are a collection of copy-editing-free snippetsthat don't really need the attention of highly skilled and perceptive copy editors. Just about anyone who can read could have done the job.

The editorial's position statement is mssing a "not," giving every Sun reader a really good feeling about accuracy, attention to detail, and carefully crafted columns by skilled writers.

Just inches away, a correction on the letters page omits any reference to date, writer, headline, or an issue that might actually set the record straight. And what's with the "transcription error" excuse? If someone on staff is typing "Englewood" instead of "Manasota," then the problem goes a little deeper than just firing all those copy editors.

And finally, a local front correction elevates Joe Kernan to Indiana's one and only former governor. Journalism students who missed it in high school usually learn by the time they finish their second or third story for the Campus Bugle that there's a difference between "the" and "a."

When You Don't Say Where You Got It, We Call It Plagiarism

Today's Arcadian carries an editorial that appeared earlier this week in a Fort Worth, Texas, paper. Susan Hoffman, Arcadian managing editor, uses the editorial without attribution and appropriates not only the copy but the headline, as well.

Sure, next week Hoffman will run a little note acknowledging the borrowing (although the last time she tried this, even the correction was wrong -- see March 4, below). But the practice points to more than just unintentional plagiarism brought on by careless copy editing.

The practice of running out-of-state editorials (with or without 'fessing up to their origins) tells readers the editorial staff lacks the time -- and the will -- to express a local viewpoint on local issues. And when it's time to roll the presses, just about any space filler will do.

Devoting local Viewpoint space to a national story that didn't appear in the hyper-local weekly Arcadian tells readers that their news leadership is reluctant to comment on DeSoto County issues. In fact, dozens of important local stories -- the ones that are not flattering to the powers that be -- never make it to the paper. Filling space with out-of-town "viewpoints" tells readers that their watchdog is a lapdog.

Grammar Bits, the Sequel

Below is a post about an article written by a schools-beat reporter who can't get subjects and verbs to agree. On Sunday, we read the same error, same newspaper, different writer, twice in one column. This time it's the publisher Himself. He's writing about effective teachers.

Tongue firmly in cheek, Himself opines that pols get "much smarter" when they head off to Tallahassee, "...their knowledge and brain power dwarfs that of the local school board..."

Grammar bit: plural and compound subjects require a plural verb.

Later, in the same column, " ... teacher pay and tenure is largely a matter of advanced courses .. and years of service."

Grammar bit: plural and compound subjects require a plural verb.

On the other side of the coin, singular nouns pair up with singular pronouns, a grammar bit that this morning's editorial writer ignores: "... local government is busy launching their own projects."

And what's with the hyper possessive from the same editorial writer? The Venice city manger reports an "expansion of its Knights's Trail Business Park ..."


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