Dog Loose in a Parallel Universe

Compiling police-beat shorts must be viewed a punishment by DeSoto Sun's world-weary staff. It took Old Word Wolf years of goading to prod the grizzled John Lawhorne and his editor (a j-school product!) into including the third "W" (when) in police beat items. Until then, his typical entry read "Cows reported loose on Hanson."

Sure, it takes a bit more care to sort out when something occured. But then, that's what reporters do, no?

Alas, that little detail marking history's first draft has recently been folded into a subhed -- yielding this morning's gem:

Neighborhood Watch: These incidents were reported Saturday and Sunday.

Which means, of course, the car break-in happened Saturday and Sunday; the dog ran loose Saturday and Sunday, and the caller reporting a laser beam aimed at her house dialed 911 Saturday and Sunday. And all those arrests for probation violations and failure to pay child support and sale of controlled subtances happened on Saturday AND Sunday. What a busy little town we have.

Meanwhile, the Charlotte Sun today dedicates page 5 in all editions to its own used-car-lot-like promo, complete with a dialog balloon emerging from the ME's left ear. The barely disguised purpose is to dance on the grave of the New York Times's local.

The strangest part is the "let us know.." graf calling for our favorite cartoon! Cartoon! Chris, this is a newspaper that you are managing, not a comics sheet -- except that part called Letters to the Editor, but that's another posting.

In sort, if you don't know by now, Chris, give me a jingle and we'll talk.

Well, OK, Old Word Wolf will play along.
What I'd like to see in my paper is:
1. Actual copy editing; stories are read and edited with grace and intelligence.
2. Actual assignments that reflect a watchdog -- not a lapdog -- approach to local officials, issues, and events.
3. Actual reporting in some depth with intelligence, covering schools, government, and all the other little "quasi governmental" places where tax dollars are funneled.
4. Less Dr. Donohue in news hole and more coverage of significant events elsewhere on the planet; less reader-provided plagiarism, and the elimination of all Kid-Lit submissions. You can also make room for real news by eschewing the minutes of meetings for clubs that 14 women belong to and which record table decorations and luncheon menus, leading with the phrase "at the lovely home of our hostess ... "

That's something I'd like to see in "MY" newspaper.

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.

Hed Delivers Snickers for Kids Instead of Facts for Grownups

Those cute kids in the hed shop last night wrote for the giggle instead of the facts -- again. This morning’s three-column headline on the Florida Page, “Naked man says cops broke in without warrant,” proves silly still rules at the playpen copy desk.

The headline kid takes a temporary condition – sleeping in the nude – to characterize a general state of being. In fact, the person in question was awakened in his home – where there’s no law against nakedness – in a case of mistaken identity. By the time the victim filed a complaint against Collier County’s finest, he had found his jeans.

The story says the victim believes he was targeted for a warrantless search based on an anonymous Crime Stopper’s tip because he wears dreads, caps and tats. “I like my dreads. I like my gold teeth. I like my tattoos on my arms,” he’s quoted as saying. Those are his permanent conditions. Less of a snicker and far more relevant and accurate: “Tattooed man says cops broke in without warrant.”

But a Sun copy desk kid (can’t bring myself to say “copy editor”) has an ongoing, adolescent fascination with all things nekkid.

Head Shop

Clearly, the stadium wasn't running fast enough.

That's the print edition. Here's the e-edition.

Millions missing in embezzlement mystery

The story says $1.6 million and change is gone. That's a singular million, not a plural millions.

Worse, the story carries no report of embezzlement. A bookkeeper is named by a principal in the story, and her Facebook page is discussed at length. However, no charges had been filed against her, and why and how the money disappeared remained a mystery. Old Word Wolf doesn't know how a copy desk editor can predict embezzlement, but she smells a potential libel suit should the story unfold along other lines.

Publisher's Nephew Has a Bad Day

A few weeks back, the Charlotte Sun's head headline writer spelled the Nutmeg State with three t's, tacking the superfluous one on the end: Connecticutt. Old Word Wolf turned the page without comment. It had been blog policy that typos wouldn't be a source of finger pointing. Since then, unfortunately, things have been going so very wrong in the spelling department that it would be a dereliction of duty to continue that policy.

In other copy desk news ...

The annoying lede -- "leaf-peeping" -- and the pronoun error in the fourth graf -- "it's" instead of "its" -- weren't enough to spike a lame fall foliage feature. Nooo. The Sun runs it twice. It was the top story in the Northern Report roundup yesterday. Today, it's all the news New Hampshire could produce. It's not even remotely possible that the local copy desk checked the math of a reporter who thought asking how many leaves fell in the Granite State constitutes journalism. Checking the math would require ... well, professionalism.


The AP reporter figures it this way: "The result: 1,400 pounds of leaves per acre ... times 2.5 million acres [equals] 1.9 million tons. At a tenth of an ounce per leaf, that's 609 billion leaves in New Hampshire."

Actually, it isn't. 1,400 pounds of leaves per acre multiplied by 2.5 million acres equals 3,650,000,000 pounds of leaves.
10 leaves per ounce amounts to 160 leaves per pound. (I'm skeptical of this figure, but we'll go with it for now.)
160 leaves per pound multiplied by 3,650,000,000 pounds equals 584,000,000,000 leaves.

Dear Abby: I Haz Not Copee Editur Bluz

Deer Abby: I know you get alots
of letters from peeple complaining
about there bosses. I'd like to offer some thin a bit different, and maybe briten, yur day. I work as a copy eidter at Charlotte Sun Newspaper and my bosses are the nicest peeple around. They idid not mind that i hated speling in schol. Now I get to rite hedlimes. Hope you like the on I rote for your colum this morning. Betz Wishz: Copee Eitur and Yur Fan.

P.S. ... I have a intern to tuttor. Today she writez "violent crimes against individuals is down in the first six months of this year compared to last year states a recently released report by Florida Department of Law Enforcement." Iznt she good!

P.P.S. Im voting for the demicrat for sherrif. Because DeSoto Assistant Editer Hoffman sez to and sheez a good writer to:

Algar has not had direct law
enforcement experience, although she has
training in crime scene investigation
and has worked as an private investigat-
or. Compare that with Wise, who
has 30 years as a law enforcement
officer (including 12 years as the
chief deputy in DeSoto County).
She has some hefty competition.
So why does Algar think she's
qualified?

Today's non sequitur:

Help your
Newspaper
get better

by Chris Porter
Editor

In an effort to improve your
paper, the Sun is kicking off a
survey.

Uh, Chris, "kicking off a survey" won't help "my" newspaper get better. Surveys don't improve papers. But editing and news judgment might. Today's raft of readers' letters to the editor informing us that the Democratic presidential candidate is a Muslim and hangs with terrorists violates of the ethical and factual standards at every legitimate newspaper in the land. Shame on you.

More about that survey:

When the survey is over, we'll
take all of the participants and
have a drawing for some $50
Publix gift cards

.

Hmm. How to fit all those participants in the hat ... ?

And One More Observation: Not only does the pen-wielding editor/writer all but endorse Candidate Wise in the news report, she -- the editor -- runs a prison-quality mug shot for one and the flag-in-the-background studio pose for her favorite.

Charlotte Sun Editor Reaches New Low in Tasteless, Callow Reporting

Two months ago, three news services apparently carried unrelated reports of families living in squalid conditions and raising neglected children in Georgia and Missouri. Last night, an unnamed Charlotte Sun news editor decided this is the best way to deliver the information to southwest Florida:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxNews of
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe Weird

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe Aristocrats!

In three instances reported in August, American kids were found living in such filthy squalor and isolation that authorities feared they were nearly as developmentally stunted as feral children raised in the wilderness. A 36-year-old man in Lavonia, Ga., was arrested for having imprisoned his wife and three never-schooled children inside their small trailer home for at least the last three years. And, in Burke County, Ga., a woman and 11 never-schooled children were found in a filthy trailer home without electricity or running water. And, in Polk County, Mo., six children were found among three families living in a clump of 12 isolated, junk-packed trailer homes with 360 animals and the only water coming from a series of connected garden hoses.

For readers unfamiliar with the Charlotte Sun’s reference to The Aristocrats!, Wikipedia helps:

“The Aristocrats” is a long-standing transgressive joke among comedians in which the setup and punch line are almost always the same. The joke involves a person pitching an act to a talent agent. The man describes the act. The teller of the joke is expected to ad-lib the most shocking act they can possibly imagine. This often involves elements of incest, group sex, graphic violence, defecation, coprophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, child sexual abuse and other taboo behaviors. The joke ends with the agent asking “And what do you call the act?” The punch line is then delivered: “The Aristocrats!”

Not quite so awful, but another editor is having a bad day, too:

"Joe Pendergrass got to know Sarah Palin when she was mayor of his hometown, Wasilla -- a town that, until a few months ago, nobody had heard of." The byline: by Dana Sanchez, Assistant Englewood Editor.

Nobody? Readers expect an editor -- even an assistant -- to know how to do a little research and then how to report accurately. It's a patent fallacy to report Wasilla is a town "nobody had heard of" until a few months ago. Whether the population is 5,469 (U.S. Census 2000) or 9,780 (U.S. Census estimate for 2007), that's a far cry from "nobody." I'll wager good money that several hundreds -- maybe even several thousands -- of folks in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau know Wasilla. And then there's everyone who voted the Wasilla mayor into the governor's residence: Nobodies.

Readers crave journalism, not an editor's -- assistant editor of a city desk covering a city nobody heard of, maybe? -- rather careless, self-centered opinionizing about a news story (since Sanchez hadn't heard of Wasilla, nobody had).