Your verb needs corrected

The following sentence, taken from a paper which shall remain nameless, is just wrong. W-R-O-N-G:

Reilly said Moreno outlined four things that needed corrected before the petition could be approved.

It should be "needed to be corrected" or "needed correcting." I just hate that mistake. It's made far too often in spoken and written English these days. Please try to avoid it.

Read my students' blogs

I'm teaching a class called "Blogging for Journalists" over winter break. It's only four weeks, but I think that's enough time to start a blog and get the idea of how to post.

The students' blogs are interesting. We've got lots of cool topics, from banned books to basketball. Check out the links on the right of this page.

One thing I'm trying to emphasize in this course is that blogging is about more than opinions. It's about research and facts and good, clear writing. Some of the students have a lot of journalism classes under their belts, and it show. Others are a little raw. I think they're all enjoying it. It'll be fun to see how the blogs progress in the next three weeks.

Did you take an English class?

Saw an interesting ad for Red Rocks Community College today. The ad was on a bus stop near my gym. Next to a photo of a smiling, seemingly intelligent young man was the following sentence:

I started at Red Rocks, now I'm at a four-year college.

The man supposedly saying this needs to take an English class. That is, if any English professors still teach grammar and punctuation, which I highly doubt.

What's wrong with this sentence? Some folks call it a comma splice. I call it a run-on sentence. What you've got is two sentences that both can stand alone, separated by a comma. But you can't use a comma that way. It's incorrect comma usage, for goodness sake! You need to put a period between the sentences. You could use a semicolon, if you're so inclined. Or, you could add the word "and" after the comma.

Don't get me wrong. Red Rocks is a great school. It's just that the people in the marketing department need to get in touch with those in the English department the next time they write an advertisement. This is yet another reason why it's imperative for advertising students to take writing and editing classes seriously.

He's just doing his job

Check out this photo on The Denver Post website. It accompanies a story about pat downs at the Denver International Airport. I know that's what the story is about, but I don't know if I'd run this one. Call me a prude, but I'm worried about the effect publication would have on those pictured. There are other interesting photos at the Post website. Would you run them?

Stop stereotyping journalists!

I'm reading another great novel by Jodi Picoult. This one is called "Nineteen Minutes," and it's as captivating as her other books. But like everything else, this book ain't perfect.

The story involves a high school student who kills 10 of his classmates after being bullied all his life. While in jail awaiting trial, he receives a letter from someone who says she's a graduate student researching the effects of bullying. It turns out that the letter writer is actually a reporter for Time magazine, trying to get a story. This is an old, sorry stereotype of journalists, and I wish writers would stop using it. I have never heard of a case of a reporter lying to get a story like this.

The fact that a popular, talented writer like Picoult would perpetuate this stereotype offends me. And it should offend all journalists. Yes, a few reporters have lied over the years. Yes, a few reporters have made up or plagiarized stories. But it seems like every time a journalist is a character in a novel or movie, he or she is portrayed as unethical. Can we please get some good journalists into the mix? After all, the overwhelming majority of journalists are ethical.

Please let writers know about this post. Thanks.

When was that?

One of the biggest problems my students have is unclear writing. This is a problem because when readers can't understand something, they may just stop reading it. Clarity is especially important for journalists who want to go into television or radio news. Broadcast news must be clear because viewers and listeners can't reread what they don't understand.

I came across some unclear writing today in Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine for journalists. You'd think that such a magazine would want to avoid unclear writing at all costs, if only to escape snarky readers like me. Here's the lead that confused me:

"In 1974, Jack Klunder, president and publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News, discovered that his 1966 Ford Mustang had been stolen from a college parking lot."

(I don't know if Klunder's Mustang was red, but I really like Mustangs, and I found this photo online.)

That's confusing in two places, come the think of it. First, the sentence implies that Klunder was the president and publisher of the newspaper in 1974. But that's not the case, according to the rest of the story. To fix this, the writer might have written "In 1974, Jack Klunder, now president and publisher ..."

The second problem stems from the fact that the author includes two years in the sentence. It's just plain confusing. I had a teacher in college who told us "numbers are numbing." It's true. The more figures a sentence contains, the more confusing it becomes. I would solve this problem by inserting the model year of the car a bit later in the story.

Clarity is worth working toward. If you find something in this post that seems unclear, post a comment.

Keeping the election in context

One thing journalists don't do enough of it put events into context. You can throw facts at the audience all you want, but to really tell the story, you have to tell them what those facts mean. Brendan Nyhan discusses what the media did wrong on this front in a piece in the Huffington Post. He covers both sides well.

One problem seems to be that it's too easy to analyze statistics. You can make statistics back up just about any point. But what people often forget is that correlation not the same as causation. Here's one example from Nyhan's story:

Under the headline "Crushed," Josh Marshall noted that "Of the 39 Dems who voted against Health Care Reform, 12 are going to be returning in the next Congress," suggesting that opposition to reform was a cause of these members' defeats. However, he failed to note that most of anti-HCR members represented competitive districts and that vulnerable Democrats who opposed reform appeared to perform somewhat better than their pro-HCR counterparts.

Well said!

Sign spotted at the Rally to Restore Sanity.

Because they said so

Here's an update on the Bally's/Ballys post. I contacted Bally's, which apparently is owned by Harrah's. (Not Harrahs.) Not that this answers any questions, but it is good to know someone got back to me.

I just received word from our Marketing Department. They stated that the sign was completed well before our time so we are not exactly sure of the actual reasoning behind it, but traditionally when the BALLY’S logo is executed as a vertical, the apostrophe is dropped so that may be why it is without on the sign.

So it seems it's a vertical/horizontal thing. Like if Bally's stands up, it loses its lap and its apostrophe. I still don't like the way it looks. Maybe we could do an e-mail campaign in which people complained about this. If you're interested, go to the Bally's Las Vegas website and click on "contact us" on the top menu.

Did Bally's lose a bet?

Did Bally's lose its apostrophe by betting on the Red Sox?

Went to Las Vegas for the first time this weekend. Had a blast with my college friends. But was quite disappointed in in the giant signs Bally's has on the side of its hotel and casino. (See image at left.)

The apostrophe seems to have vanished, much like my money did in the slot machines. I saw at least three signs with no punctuation.

But when we had breakfast, the coffee cups clearly included the apostrophe. So which is it? The official website indicates the name of the hotel is Bally's. A little consistency would be appreciated.

Say what?

Read the subhead, if you can.

Why bother?

A state-run Egyptian newspaper doctored a photo from the recent talks between Israel and Palestinian leaders. The question is, why? The Egyptians were not leading the talks. The talks were not even about Egypt. So why would the Egyptian paper change the photo to put President Hosni Mubarak in front of President Obama? It just seems silly to me.

That's not a word

Just found an interesting error on the official site of the Boston Red Sox. It should say "Surgery might be inevitable for Pedroia's foot." I'm not sure what the headline is implying. Anybody know what "sugery" means?

Read any guy's lit lately?

Just read a great piece by NPR's Linda Holmes. The title of the column is "Women are not Marshmallow Peeps, and other reasons there's no 'chick lit.'" The best line, IMHO, is this:

But at this point, I think the only solution is to stay away from the term "chick lit" as much as humanly possible, because it's become a term that means "by and about women, and not something you need to take seriously...."

And her other great point: Why don't we categorize books about men as "guy's lit"? Just something to ponder.

Jobs in journalism growing

Jobs in journalism growing

Its a cute blog

I found this today. It's got some interesting stuff. (And yes, I know I left out the apostrophe in the headline. I did it on purpose.)

Get the lead out

Why am I surprised by anything anymore? I spotted a very silly error in Scott Turow's op-ed column in today's New York Times. Turow writes:

The measure was never ratified by the Legislature, while her offer of $1,000 lead directly to her conviction for bribery in the Illinois courts.

The past tense of "lead" is "led." It's not an error that spell-check will catch, so you have to actually proofread your work. "What's proofreading?" you ask? It's a long-forgotten skill that, if practiced correctly, might save you from embarrassment.

Good edit

Update: Just in time for the beginning of the school year, my online friend Mark Johnson photo-shopped this fix of the misspelling on a North Carolina road.

Very cool, mark.

Hot hot wheels wheels

My son has had this Hot Wheels toy for over a year, but I just noticed the error on the box yesterday. Does that mean my copy editing skills are declining, or that I'm just less cranky?

Click on the photo and look on the left for the typo. You see why every office needs a copy editor.

What about dad?

I was struck by the juxtaposition of two stories in The New York Times earlier this week. One was a magazine article about stock car racer Dale Earnhardt Jr., the other a sports feature on New York Liberty power forward Taj McWilliams-Franklin. Both were well done, but they also replayed old stereotypes about what is expected of mothers and fathers in our society.

The McWilliams-Franklin story focused on how her travel schedule impacted her relationship with her daughters. It was part of the Times' series "Motherhood in Play." The Earnhardt piece discussed how Junior missed out on a relationship with his father, also a racing superstar.

These two ideas seem related, no? Yet why is there never a story on how pro sports affects fatherhood? The McWilliams-Franklin story told readers that 11 mothers play in the WNBA. I know it must be difficult for their families, but isn't it also difficult for all the families of fathers who play in the NBA?

The WNBA story actually quoted a social psychologist saying the following about the fact that McWilliams-Franklin's youngest daughter is cared for by the girl's father. "The ideal arrangement if you have to leave a young child is to leave it with a relative." Really? You mean, somebody like the kid's dad?

The stories seem to say that men being away from their families is the norm, although it may result in missed relationships, but women being away is abnormal. Subtle sexism is still sexism.

Headline here

My mom found this in the Chapel Hill News. Click on the image and look under the photo to see the error. In case you were wondering, the author's name is Mark Zimmerman.

Unfortunately, it's a fairly common mistake, probably because we don't have enough copy editors looking at pages. And the copy editors we do have don't have the time to do their work properly.

Read the entire column online.

Did you spell check that one?

This comes from Southern Guilford County in North Carolina. That's North Carolina, home of the Tra Heels, Woofpack and Bule Divels. Read the story.

Is this libel?

This Denver Post story really got it wrong.

Click on the graphic and read the fifth graph.

Poskey is the family friend who released the statement. I think the author meant Robert Laurencio Montoya, the boyfriend.

See how easy it is to make a mistake that can get you in trouble?

Class Web site: Latest edition

Check out the latest edition of the 410 Forum, with stories by students in my Advanced News class. These students are really good writers.

Check out my new Facebook page

Cause blogs are so last Thursday. Follow the Crank on Facebook at The Cranky Copy Editor.

This dad's got his own club

Saw a T-shirt at the mall that said the following:

D.A.D.D.
Dad's Against Daughters Dating

The problem is the apostrophe. It means one of two things. It could mean that the word is possessive. But there's nothing for it to possess. So that doesn't make sense. It could mean that the apostrophe stands in for a missing letter. So it could mean "dad is" against daughters dating. That kind of makes sense, if the creator is talking about just one dad. But not if the creator intended "D.A.D.D." to take after MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions).

It should be "Dads Against Daughters Dating." That way, the word "dads" is plural, which means the club can include more than one dad.

Are you sure about that?

Call the ASPCA! In case you can't read the image, the small headline on the left says:

"No one hurt, but family dog is killed."

We're online

My JMC410 class has done some great work so far this semester, and it's online at our class Web site, The 410 Forum. Please check it out.

Another fact not checked

The sports editor at The Star Press in Muncie, Ind., had to apologize in print this week for getting a story completely wrong. Seems a guy by the same name as a local athletic director applied for a job at a different school. Oops. Why did they wait until it was the middle of the night to call the guy for a comment? They'd been chasing the story all day. Unbelievable.

Funniest headlines of all time

These classics remind us that the best "head" writers have the dirtiest minds.

Worth watching

Just finished watching "Control Room," a documentary about Al Jazeera, an Arab-language news outlet. It told the story of the network, as well as the story of how the War in Iraq was managed by the U.S. military. I got the impression that Al Jazeera covered the war better than most of the U.S. news outlets. I highly recommend this movie.

And some sad news. I had forgotten that a correspondent from Al Jazeera was killed when U.S. planes bombed the station's Baghdad offices. It just reminds you of how deadly journalism can be. Very sad.

Did you Chek that?

I love newspapers because they're permanent. A Web site might be edited every five minutes, but a printed newspaper is here to stay. And that's why mistakes in print are so much worse than those online or on video. Of course, they all stink in my book.

One of my former news writing students found this headline, from our local paper, The (Greeley) Tribune. The name of the writer is Anton Chekhov. I know it's a Russian name, and those Russian names are so hard to spell. But that's why we fact check. And when it comes to fact-checking, names are the most important thing to check, or Chekhov, if you will. And fact-checking is rather easy, thanks to the Web. All you have to do is Google the name as you think it's spelled, and Google will come up with the right name. That's what I did for this post. I put in "Checkhov" and Google corrected me.

I guess nobody bothered to tell the editors at The Tribune, because as I write this, four days after publication of the offending headline, the paper's Web site still contains the misspelling.

Student newspaper threatened

Virginia Tech officials have threatened to pull the funding for the school's newspaper unless the paper stops accepting anonymous Web comments. The general manager of the Collegiate Times says her paper will sue if the school pulls it $70,000 in annual funding.

I support the paper, of course. Although I'm not a fan of anonymous posts, it's standard practice at professional papers. I don't think officials at Virginia Tech have the right to pull the funding over this. The purpose of a student newspaper is to teach students how to be professional journalists. I believe that campus papers should be held to the same high standards of ethics and fact checking that other papers must meet, and I also believe they should be allowed the same First Amendment rights as professional papers.

And look -- somebody agrees with me.

Although the Collegiate Times is independent, it still gets money from the school. That's pretty common. The Mirror, UNC's student paper, has a similar arrangement.

Oh no he didn't

I'm listening to The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman. In this 2005 book, Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, explores how technology and globalization have "flattened" the globe.

It's a good book so far, but I have a big problem with the editing. Friedman quotes someone as saying that the flattening of the world is a fundamental development equal to "Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, the rise of the nation state, and the industrial revolution."

News flash: Gutenberg didn't invent the printing press. In about 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented a press that used a system of movable type. This made printing cheaper and faster. Movable type and the printing press both were invented in Asia long before Gutenberg came along.

I do wish otherwise intelligent people would stop reinforcing the myth that Gutenberg invented the printing press. Especially if those people are journalists. They should know better.

Students take to the blogosphere

Once again my students are blogging. See the links list on the left. According to one of our textbooks, "Journalism Next: A Practical Guide to Digital Reporting and Publishing" by Mark Briggs, every college student should have a blog. I hope these stand out for their great writing and insight.

We are also in the planning stages of the class Web site. We'll be updating last year's site, the 410 Forum. It should be online next month. I'm planning more photos and a cleaner look to the site. Students are in the process of writing day in the life stories. I think these stories will be fun to read.

I'll have the fried ricc

Was driving back from Aurora (don't ask) the other day and saw the following on a sign:

Chiness Food

I believe it was a restaurant, but I'm not sure what they're selling. Any ideas?

They 'Lost' the punctuation, too

I'm in heaven right now because I just watched the first episode of the final season of my all-time favorite show, "Lost." I don't have cable, so I had to watch it on abc.com. The story is so good I hardly noticed that the picture quality is only fair.

I bring this up because of an egregious punctuation error that I had to watch during several commercials. It was a Verizon/ABC ad. Here's the sentence:

Will the islands origins be revealed?

The word "islands" should be possessive, so there should be an apostrophe before the "s." Without the apostrophe, it's just plural. So the sentence doesn't make sense.

Understanding punctuation might seem so 20th century, but it means a lot when your message is going over the Internet for millions to see.

Sitting in on history

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. Back then, blacks weren't served at lunch counters in the South. Four North Carolina A&T students sat down and ordered coffee and doughnuts and refused to move until they were served. They were arrested. Word of their peaceful protest spread, thanks to newspaper and network TV news, and more students took up the cause throughout the South.

Howell Raines covered the civil rights movement and later served as executive editor of The New York Times. In an op-ed piece in today's Times, Raines, recounts how the news media helped fuel the sit-in movement.

It took only one national telecast of Nashville students being assaulted at the lunch counters to demonstrate that segregation everywhere depended on the unconstitutional application of police brutality.

He also discusses how today's news media, so different than that of 1960, might have affected the movement differently.

Surely the civil rights movement would have been hampered by the politicized, oppositional journalism that flows from Fox News and the cable talk shows.

Being a good journalist means being ethical and responsible. It also means having an awareness of the injustices of the past, and of the present.

Game on

Teaching sports reporting this semester. Took my students to the Northern Colorado men's basketball game last night. UNC lost to Montana by two points.

It was the first time I'd been to a UNC game since the team went to Division I. Last time I was there, the only ones in the stands were the players' parents and a few 12-year-olds.

The place was packed for the Montana game. And they sell beer now.

I attended the press conference to get quotes for my students. It was like going back in time. Except this time I used a laptop instead of a reporter's notebook.

Time to read the stories my students wrote.

Tweet this

My students are tweeting. That must be a good thing, right? A reporter from The (Greeley) Tribune discussed Twitter in my Advanced News and Feature Writing class last week. Jacob Rodgers, a 2009 UNC graduate with a journalism degree, covers education and tweets all the time. To follow Rodgers on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/JakobRodgers.

Some of the students in the class are taking Rodgers' speech to heart. The school paper, The Mirror, will be tweeting live from two sporting events this week. Mitchell Woll, a student in the class, will be tweeting from UNC's wrestling match against Oklahoma Friday, and a reporter will be tweeting from tonight's men's basketball game against Montana. The sports editor, Jordan Freemyer, is also a student in my class, and he might be the reason for this leap into the Twitter universe. I haven't seen any tweets in the paper before this. You can check out the tweets at the following sites: twitter.com/mitchell_woll and twitter.com/uncmirror.

I'm glad these students are taking the initiative, and I look forward to reading the tweets. I hope more student journalists will take advantage of social media in the future. College is an opportunity to try news things and see if they work for you. Way to go, Mitchell and Jordan.

It's not just for breakfast

My facebook friend Mike alerted me to this post, which includes some important rules that everyone should follow, journalist or not. It's from The Oatmeal, an interesting Web site, to say the least.