MEDIA MATTERS

There are days when I wonder if any of our local reporters ever paid attention in 6^th grade English class (or any other English class for that matter.)

The grammar mistakes they make seem to be getting worse and more numerous. (Let me concentrate on TV, my field, but let me assure you these pop up on radio and in our newspapers as well.)

Here’s the most numerous one:  “like I said earlier…like the mayor said.” No, it’s “AS I said earlier.” You can like me on Facebook, but for comparisons, etc..it’s “as.”

Or “he left the burning car quick.” No, adjectives modify nouns, adverbs modify verbs. “He left the burning car quickly.”

Or  “When me and my photographer arrived”.  Me arrived? Try “when my photographer and I arrived…”

Other mistakes involved bad journalism: the station that, while promoting its lottery report has the anchor say..”you can’t win if you don’t play.”  That’s a commercial for the lottery, and reporters/anchors aren’t supposed to do commercials---for sponsors or not.

On the constant failure to use alleged properly..as in convicting someone by your story..”the twin brothers had porn in their home.”  No, they had alleged porn in their home.” Or “Police say they had…” It is so easy to forget the presumption of innocence and local reports do it often.

Our lack of national and world news on local newscasts is another matter, not grammatical but perhaps far more important.

When Robin Williams died, his death not known in time to make the 6:30pm network news, our 10pm Fox newscast had a perfect chance to tell its viewers this “new” news, but instead led with a story about a S. Kentucky couple charged with keeping a too dirty home for their kids..one I saw on 27 at noon.

If you want to get the world (and US national)  news before bed, watch the BBC news on KET at 11pm. It's excellent.

Of course, NPR news is there much of the time; hopefully their people don’t make the simple mistakes of our local folks outlined above.

I'm just sayin'...