• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Big XII Women’s Tournament — the best show in town
St. Patrick’s Day Parade, 2012 »

Lights! Cameras! Lots of screw-ups!

March 12, 2012 by jimmycsays

My sharp-eyed, 23-year-old daughter Brooks, who has the makings of a good editor, called my attention to a Sunday New York Times story that had an unusual number of glitches, mostly related to missing and misused words.

It was a 17-paragraph story, inside the front section, about how a 340-ton, 21-foot-tall boulder was transported 60 miles from a quarry to the downtown Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Borne on a 196-wheel-transport truck, the boulder arrived at its destination at 4:35 a.m. Saturday and was greeted by a boisterous crowd of more than 1,000.

Within the next month, the boulder will be placed over a cut trench and opened to the public as an exhibit.

The story was fascinating and carried a catchy headline:

“Lights! Cameras! (And Cheers) For a rock Weighing 340 Tons.”

The writer was Adam Nagourney, a very well-known Times reporter. Nagourney, 57, was chief national political correspondent for The Times from 2002 to 2010, when he was appointed Los Angeles Bureau Chief.

The first 10 paragraphs of the story were free and clear of problems, as far as I could tell, but the last seven paragraphs were marred by six glitches.

Take a look:

***

Paragraph 11: “Los Angeles is not a particularly late-night city, and people who made it there at 4:30 in the morning either found a new use for the disco naps of their use or stayed up all night.”

Huh? Try this…”either found a new use for disco naps or stayed up all night.”

Sound better?

***

Paragraph 12: “Jeff Miller, 32, (blank) to a Guns N Roses show at the Hollywood Palladium that lasted, he reported, until close to 3 a.m.”

The missing word? “Went.”

***

Paragraph 12 (continued): “At that point, he figured he would just make a night of it and headed over to (blank) museum.

Yes…”the museum.”

***

Paragraph 13: “By the end, the convey traveled 100 miles of road to cover 60 miles of distance…”

“Convey?” No comprende. How about “convoy?”

***

Paragraph 14: “And in any event, this did not appear to (blank blank) routines of people who are accustomed to late nights.”

If you guessed “disrupt the routines,” you get a gold star.

***

Against that backdrop of screw-ups, the last paragraph of the story began like this:

“Mr. Miller, who stayed up all night, said he had rarely witnessed events like this here.”

Now, had the story been otherwise glitch-free, I would have construed the italicized words to mean that Miller had rarely witnessed events such as this taking place in Los Angeles.

But in light of the mind-boggling word jumble that had gone before, I tended to interpret them this way: “Mr. Miller who stayed up all night, said he had rarely witnessed events like this here event.”

When a writer and a newspaper throw junk at the reader, what they get in return is disgust and even contempt from readers. That’s when you start hearing people say, “That paper contains so many grammatical errors that you can hardly read it!”

And that is exactly the kind of attitude that newspapers can no longer afford. Readers now have 340 tons of options for where they can go to get their news without having their intelligence insulted.

Editor’s Note: The errors were corrected in the online version of the story — the version that is linked above…”This here” stayed as is…or was, or whatever.

Editor’s Note, No. 2: I’ve got an e-mail in to Art Brisbane, The Times’ “public editor,” asking him essentially, “What the hell happened with this here story?”

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in journalism, Uncategorized | Tagged Adam Nagourney, The New York Times | 9 Comments

9 Responses

  1. on March 12, 2012 at 6:10 am chuck

    I agree with Siddartha Gautama, that mankind’s collective view on the entirety of life, is based on a bad pronoun reference.

    Is wandering through the corrections needed in gramatical Samsara removing the veils from our eyes?

    Who knew?

    Fitz, a Bodhisattva.


  2. on March 12, 2012 at 11:39 am jimmycsays

    I just got an initial response from Art. He said the New England edition, which goes to print later than the Midwest edition, did not have the errors…He is looking into it further.


  3. on March 12, 2012 at 2:07 pm Rick Nichols

    Well, these things can happen to even the best of them, including the “gold standard” NY Times. Speaking of which, in the process of collecting material for my IWATS (I Worked At The Star) project, I was able to pull up the obituary for Henry C. Haskell as it appeared in the NY Times. Short obituary, as one might expect in a distant paper, but the heading read “Henry J. Haskell”. Henry J. was, of course, the father of Henry C. Someone was asleep at the switch there. Yes, it sounds like your “beautiful daughter” as you have lovingly referred to her has some potential as a proofreader if not a copy editor. Hey, the Times could always blame the glitch on “solar flares” since the dog hasn’t eaten anyone’s homework in this case.


  4. on March 12, 2012 at 4:07 pm Rick Nichols

    Of course, the first thing I noticed in your clip art that starts out “Accidents …” is the absence of the much-needed apostrophe in “childs”. I think “Childs” is the last name of the guy who played basketball for Tennessee last year. Yes, it’s “convoy” as you so accurately point out. I think “Convey” is the last name of the new soccer player for Sporting Kansas City.


  5. on March 12, 2012 at 4:12 pm jimmycsays

    Rick — I trust you didn’t miss the subject-verb problem…”Accident happens…”


  6. on March 12, 2012 at 4:29 pm adam nagourney

    Hey: I can answer this.
    We have a 12 noon eastern deadline for our first edition. So we were REALLY jamming it (I got back from the rock around 9 a.m our time). The first-edition story is the one that went on line right away, and because it was written and edited so fast (I had no sleep! I was going 100 mph!), those errors got through. They were corrected ASAP, certainly by the print edition, but I also think online within a few hours.

    This is one of the challenges of this new era; we want to get stories online ASAP because our readers want speed, and sometimes it takes a little while for the editing/copy editing to catch up with it..

    Hope this helps.

    Best
    –Adam Nagourney


  7. on March 12, 2012 at 4:55 pm jimmycsays

    Thanks, Adam. I appreciate you responding directly. I surmised that speed had a lot to do with it, but it’s still a concern that so many screw-ups got through the copy desk. I hope that wasn’t posted without a copy editor going over it. If, by chance, that’s what happened, I think it would be a clear warning signal that a few more minutes of attention would far outweigh the few minutes that a story wasn’t “up,” especially in the case of a feature story.

    And it’s too bad that the tainted version got in any print edition. You have a ton of Midwestern readers, and I’m sure a lot of people noticed.

    Again, though, thank you for responding quickly and personally. Check in on jimmycsays again sometime; I love The New York Times, and I’m almost always praising rather than criticizing.


  8. on March 12, 2012 at 6:08 pm Rick Nichols

    Jim, for some reason I’m more in tune with missing or unnecessary apostrophes, missing letters and, in the case of the NY Times story, missing words than I am with subject-verb agreement. So I slowed time the second time through and saw the problem you were referring to. A good lesson for all of us – look TWICE before crossing the street, sending a story on to the pagination department (is that close?) or, in this case, offering an observation. Hey, I think it’s great that the writer himself just made an “appearance” on your blog to explain the situation. I really appreciate his honesty and openness. It would be nice to see the same occur with a Star employee should a similar situation present itself here. Mr. Gusewelle tells us in yesterday’s Star that the News Room is becoming a much more open place – literally – like it was in “the old days.” That’s a good thing, I think, but of even greater value is openness with respect to the handling of information and communicating with the general public. I think it says a lot about the NY Times if this reporter has the freedom to discuss how his story was handled (or mishandled) and to offer some insight into the process there.


  9. on March 12, 2012 at 7:06 pm jimmycsays

    I completely agree with you, Rick, about the value of openness from newsrooms. Unfortunately, The Star’s leadership has a bunker mentality and, as far as I can tell, always has. It’s that deal about, initially, not having to answer to the public because “we know our business,” and now the editors are hiding in their offices, afraid that if they say a thing, the McClatchy executives will strike with sledgehammers.

    The New York Times’ reporters, on the other hand, tend to have the confidence to speak out because the organization is self-contained (the Sulzberger family owning a controlling share of company stock), and they understand the importance of accountability, especially in this free-for-all, digital environment.



Comments are closed.

  • Pages

    • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
    • Contact
  • Archives

    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 544 other followers

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Join 544 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: