King Soopers update

The higher-ups at King Soopers must read this blog. Either that, or they hired a copy editor. The billboards visible off Sixth Avenue in Denver and Lakewood now read correctly:

The freshest produce ... every day!

You see, we can change the world.

In case you missed it, see the erroneous billboard in my earlier post.

Do you see what I see?

Copy editors don't just edit stories. They are supposed to edit every bit of news that goes into the publication. This includes headlines, informational graphics and even turn lines, the instructions that tell people where to go for the rest of the story. You would not believe how often those things are WRONG. Some editors are particularly picky. When I was a sports copy editor, I used to add up the numbers in the box scores and call the Associated Press when they didn't make sense. As you might imagine, they loved hearing from me on deadline.

Another thing that copy editors are SUPPOSED to edit is the cut lines. These are the words that go under or next to the photographs -- what most people refer to as "captions." Cut lines are important because many people look at the pictures before reading the story, and many don't even read the story. That's why you have to identify people fully in cut lines.

I always tell students that they should NEVER, under any circumstances, write cut lines without viewing the photo. This tip would have helped with the photo/cut line combination at right. The photo is headlined "August 2: Nationals @ Pirates," and the cut line reads as follows:

Josh Willingham strokes an RBI double off Pirates pitcher Jesse Chavez in the eighth inning.

It's a photo from Major League Baseball's official Web site. You can clearly see that the back of the batter's shirt says "Cedeno." If you know baseball pretty well, you will see right away that the batter is wearing a Pirates uniform. So why does the cut line refer to him as "Josh Willingham," and why does it say that he is hitting off a Pirates pitcher?

A good copy editor, and a good photographer for that matter, would have looked at the photo and noticed that it wasn't Willingham. Then he or she would have gone to the Pirates Web site and checked on Cedeno. The last step would have been to check the box score, also available at the team's Web site, to find out who the pitcher was and what team he played for.

Guess what? I checked it. Took me about two minutes. It turns out that shortstop Ronny Cedeno, number 13, hit a homer on Aug. 2, off pitcher Collin Balester of the Washington Nationals. He did not have a double, but he did drive in two runs. Josh Willingham also played that day. He played left field for the Nationals, and he hit a home run, but not off Jesse Chavez. He hit a double off Chavez, who pitched 1.2 innings for the Pirates . Oops.

The moral of the story? Check everything. And if you're writing a cut line, don't forget to look at the photo.

Your billboard is wrong ... every day

TO: King Soopers marketing director
FROM: The Cranky Copy Editor
DATE: Aug. 8, 2009
RE: Misspelling in your billboard

The offending billboard reads as follows:

King Soopers
The freshest produce ... everyday

You should have used "every day." Here's a hint from "The Media Writer's Handbook" by George T. Arnold: If you can substitute "each" for "every," use two words.

I hope your next billboard will be better edited. Perhaps you would like to hire one of my former students. Many are looking for jobs.

Where have all the fact-checkers gone?

One of the most important jobs of a copy editor is fact checking. The New York Times must need some new copy editors. Seven errors in a story about Walter Cronkite? Uncle Walt must be rolling in his grave. Clark Hoyt, the paper's public editor, discussed the problem in this week's column.

This is really depressing to me. When I worked at the copy desk of the Indiana Daily Student, my college paper, we checked EVERY name. Does anyone do that anymore? Is fact checking "so last century"? If so, that's pretty sad. Reader comments would be appreciated.

Misplaced Hall-of-Famer

As a Red Sox fan, I'm thrilled that Jim Rice is finally being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend. As an editor, I'm appalled at the headline about the story on the team's official Web site.

Click on the image at right to see the offending headline. It reads: "Years in making, Rice ready for day in sun."

What we have here is a misplaced modifier. The phrase "years in the making" is supposed to modify Rice's "big day." But modifiers are supposed to appear next to the words they modify. This means that readers might incorrectly infer that the phrase is modifying Rice himself. A better headline would be "After 15-year wait, Rice ready for day in sun."

For more on misplaced modifiers, visit one of my favorite blogs, Grammar Monkeys, at the Wichita Eagle.

And in case you were wondering, longtime left fielder and Red Sox captain Rice is being enshrined with base stealer extraordinaire Rickey Henderson and 1942 MVP Joe Gordon. The ceremony is set for 1:30 p.m. Eastern time Sunday.

Goodbye to a legend

I came of age after Walter Cronkite had already retired as anchor of the evening news, but I still appreciate what he did. You can view his greatest moments and see for yourself.

I really enjoyed the appreciation in today's New York Times by Verlyn Klinkenborg. Here's my favorite part:

Some deaths end only a life. Some end a generation. Walter Cronkite’s death ends something larger and more profound. He stood for a world, a century, that no longer exists. His death is like losing the last veteran of a world-changing war, one of those men who saw too much but was never embittered by it. Walter Cronkite’s gift was to talk to us about what he saw, and we are very lucky to have been able to listen.

Unfortunate, but all too true.

Thanks, Uncle Walter, for all you gave journalism.

Which is it?

I enjoyed a recent scathing book review in The New York Times. Janet Maslin really took it to Chris Anderson, author of "Free: The Future of a Radical Price," and Ellen Ruppel Shell, author of "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture."

But Maslin made an error that made my crankiness rear its ugly head. The reviewer chided both authors because they referred to the same story but told it in different ways. I kept waiting for Maslin to tell readers which retelling was correct. She didn't. In the journalism business, that's called a "hole" -- a question that should have been answered but wasn't. I also like to refer to it with the technical term "bad reporting."

The case in point involves a research study by Dan Ariely. According to Maslin, the books she reviewed had the story as follows:

According to “Cheap” he offered his subjects a choice between the 1-cent Kiss and a 26-cent Ferrero Rocher hazelnut. At those prices the test subjects were divided 40 percent to 40 percent, with 20 percent opting for neither. Then the prices came down by one penny each, and 90 percent of the subjects took the free chocolate. Only 10 percent chose the higher-priced brand.

And here's what Maslin says about "Free":

In its “Free” version the non-Kiss candy is a Lindt truffle initially priced at 15 cents while the Kiss cost a penny; 73 percent of subjects chose the truffle and 27 percent picked the Kiss, with nobody abstaining. Then the prices were lowered by 1 cent each, and 69 percent of the subjects chose the free Kiss.

So which story is correct? Well, after about five minutes of Google searching, I found out. The study, written by Kristina Shampanier and Nina Mazar, as well as Ariely, described TWO experiements. The first involved a Lindt truffle, as Anderson says, but he got the price wrong. It was originally 14 cents, not 15. The second involved a Ferrero Rocher, just as Shell said. And she got the prices right.

Good copy editors either send stories with holes back to the authors for fixing or fill the holes on their own. Today's lesson: Don't leave holes in stories. If you leave readers guessing after reading a story, they might not come back next time.