I was reading an article about naval wrecks in Micronesia and the difficulty they pose with leaking oil. One of the statements was:
In the Chuuk lagoon there are more than 60 ships from the Japanese war fleet encrusted with coral and brimming with vibrant marine life.
Some still have fighter jets and trucks lashed onto their decks, while others are releasing a more toxic cargo.
Fighter jets?
Uh… editors?
While we’re here, ;), what’s incorrect about “fighter jets?” Is it redundant? Is it journalese?
Well, WW2 in Micronesia. No jets. Fighter aircraft would be okay.
Increasingly, no one proof reads news items. The major news media have started laying off copy editors in droves.
Ah, that’d do it. And I’m sure that’s the problem here: “fighter jets” is one of those pairs of words that everyone knows - there’s a technical name for this but I forget what it is - so the reporter just thinks ‘planes + war = fighter jets’ without regard to the technical meaning of ‘jet.’ That seems like something journalists are especially prone to because most of them are asked to write about a variety of subjects they aren’t familiar with, so they don’t know that kind of detail.
I’m probably being picky but to me it seems obvious- and it would to a lot of people with a military background or an interest in the conflict. I wish they would research the topic a bit more thoroughly.
I think those are called “fact checkers”. But according to a movie starring Michael Fox, they all have cocaine problems and are screwing up.
Heh I came in here thinking this would be about readers of newspaper who as a hobby nitpick the articles they read.
Which I admit to doing. I don’t tend to find grammar or spelling mistakes, but I do see a lot of journalistic stupidity. Like, what happened to the pyramid structure? I want the most important facts up front! What happened to factual news not getting sullied with editorializing? What happened to naming the source of your facts? Oh and, instead of summarizing that speech like a movie review, why not print a transcript? Geez…
Fact checkers are rare, particularly in a time where most print publications are trying to get by on decreased ad revenue. If you are putting out a publication on a daily basis, having every fact checked in every story by a person who didn’t work on it is not very practical.
Did it go somewhere? I wasn’t informed.
Commentary shows happened, for one thing. But the earliest newspapers were way more partisan than anything you’re likely to see in the paper today.
That’s still done, although you could probably make a case that anonymous sources are being relied upon too much as everybody tries to be first and ends up performing something that looks more like campaign stenography than reporting.
To use this week as an example, Obama and McCain might give a 30 or 40 minute speech. Which do you think is faster - reading a summary, which also provides some context, or reading a transcript of the entire speech? You can find a transcript without difficulty if you want one.
A few months ago there was a news story on the coyotes in Golden Gate park, and the problems that “the big cats” were causing…
I could give a long history of copyediting and proofreading (they’re two separate things, actually) but it would be a long, boring history. Let’s just blame it on computers in general and spellcheck in particular.
If you think the quality of newspapers has declined, listen closely to a TV newscast.
My complaint is the constant confusion of present- and past-tense verbs, especially on the morning news shows that don’t rewrite the prevous day’s stories properly.
Yellow journalism? I guess spin sells, but I’ll hold on to my ideals 
It’s not so much a matter of anonymous sources that I’m thinking of. It’s more often that they’ll just state “facts” as though they were direct observations which generally they aren’t. It’d be nice to know that the information in the article is “according to the police statement” or whatever.
I guess it’s fine to have a summary for those who want that. But there should always be a transcript. Especially in newspapers - I shouldn’t have to see Obama on the front page with a headline about his speech and then have to put down the newspaper and go searching on the internet for the transcript. It’s not going to take up more than a page. And generally it’s not that easy to find on the internet either. Most times there’s not even a link to a transcript from the summary on internet news sites.
And don’t even get me started on the impossibility of finding out what your ballot is going to look like…
It’s a waste of time and resources for print publications to offer full text of original sources becuase there are alternative sources for them. You say it’s hard to find a transcript of an Obama speech, but that’s not going to be a long-term problem. And anyway it’s easy to find a video link online.
What newspapers should do is write summaries, because that is what adds value. The people who were interested in the whole speech probably already watched it anyway. There are few of those people who are going to look for the next day’s newspaper to fulfill that interest. A good summary story should put the speech in proper context, offer fact-checking, and highlight what was really important or significant. In that sense, it should offer more useful information to the reader than a bare transcript.
I guess we just have to disagree on this point. I feel that if it’s a waste of their time for them to have the full text of a speech that’s advertised on the front page, then it’s a waste of my time to buy that newspaper.
I find it’s difficult though not impossible initially, but even eventually most news sources make it inconvenient. There should be a link to it on the main page of every news website and a link from every summary or video about it. And if there’s some new law, there should be a link to the government page that gives the text of the law as well as a link to what the specific vote tally was. In general, any news story on the web should give links to whatever primary sources are applicable. There’s just no excuse not to take advantage of the power of hypertext. Also, not every one wants to watch the whole speech - a transcript is much quicker, and many users have problems with or not enough bandwidth for watching video.
I’m not against newspaper also doing summaries, or denying their value (assuming they are done properly). I Just want the transcripts too.
Copy editors are generalists. I’m a pretty good copy editor, but I would very likely have missed that one. And as someone else said, copy editors and proofreaders are often considered an expense that has no payoff, because really, who cares? If there’s a misspelled word does it affect the bottom line?
To me such mistakes do nothing for the credibility of the publication (or whatever it is). It also reflects on the author of course- how precise was their research- and are the conclusions drawn on wrong grounds? (Not saying that in this instance- just things that occur to me with incorrect articles- or articles with an incorrect item).