Is it too much to ask that our for profit print media demonstrate at least a modicum of editorial skill and oversight, and perhaps make use of garden variety spell checkers and grammar checkers?
The NOTWIUM, as I reported a few days ago, has had a particularly bad spell of embarrassing grammatical goofs.
This morning, while partaking of our first breakfast at the newest spot in Brunswick – Jen’s Place on Stanwood – I was reading the Coastal Journal. Jen’s, by the way, was excellent, and she’ll soon wish she had more room.
Upon reading a story about Aviation Services and BNAS plans, I came across this gem of a sentence:
Bailey could not be reached for comment on for this story; it is not appear that he had other interaction with Town officials.
A bit further on, I began to read an editorial on nuclear energy, and it began like this:
In the last couple of weeks, the fedeal government…..
Even the software I’m using here doesn’t want to let that one slide.
Editorials are presumably written by the editor, and goodness knows Gina has her hands full writing almost every item, penning her own folksy column, and generally acting as the mother hen for all things CJ.
None the less, what do these little examples, which are all too common, say about the state of our beloved public education system? And more to the point, what do they say about the care, pride, and discipline that goes into the publication of such journals?
Should we be holding the press to a lower standard; one they can occasionally meet?
Gotta be careful, though. If we set the bar too low, even the press could have trouble getting under it.
Obviously, poor editing. As an editor, I see all manner and style of writing but that's where I come in...
ReplyDeleteI read the MRRA article and was amazed (should I be?) at the "build it and they [an aircraft refurbishing company] will come" attitude. Sounds like a potential $800K pig in a poke to me. That is a sizable amount of $ to ask the good people of Brunswick to support on sheer speculation. Have any a/c refurbishing companies expressed interest in BNAS? Have any been solicited? If not, would this be a situation where, opps - gee, rather than let this paint booth sit here and rot and get bubkes in rent, why don't we have Oxford come in and then we'll get.... uh, What WILL we get? Once the paint booth is a fait accompli, that opens to the door to ANYONE coming in just to defray *some* of the cost outlay of the booth. ("Well, we had to take them because they were the only game in town.")
Doesn't make good business sense to me. Is this in MRRA's business plan for BNAS?