Media Mumbles...and Grumbles

Growing up in journalism, one of the first major things I was taught is...don’t get a name wrong. That was a major sin.

 

This week a Lexington TV station supered a well known UK player’s name as:  Crisco!

 

Isaiah is unusual, hard to spell for me, but Crisco?!!!!!!!!!

 

That capped a slew of bad spelling, typos, or what have you...such as “chld” for “child” and many more. The issue is not bad typing but who is proofreading? (The Herald-Leader gave up proof readers a long time ago, and its stories show that, too. I don’t care what the technical reason is, to have “is” hyphenated over two lines is just plain wrong, wrong, wrong.)

 

Speaking of proofing...one of our best anchors either wasn’t paying attention, or...when a major story ended with the field reporter doing a length “tag” to the story, the anchor repeated the entire closing tag we had just heard. This is bad writing, bad producing, and just plain not paying attention...and it happens often.

 

Grammar errors remain, in abundance...and not just on local TV...I see, hear them on network television, on AP copy, in major papers...maybe even a minor reason for not trusting the media, except that these same errors are made by public officials, and ordinary citizens being interviewed.  (Are you paying attention, high school English teachers?)

 

Such errors creep into our ads, broadcast or print...with even less excuse.

 

As my old college English teacher, Prof. Henry Higgins told me...English is a noble tongue.  Too bad so many people who use it as a tool in their daily occupation seem to be tongue tied.

I'm just sayin'...