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...all of the INCOMPLETE job listings in the CLASSIFIED section?

'The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.'

'When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.'

'And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.'

'An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.' - Thomas Jefferson

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The answer is:

The same thing that's ALWAYS up with the TimesDaily...underqualified bush league "journalists" insulated from public scorn by the largely oblivious readership who fail to be concerned about childishly inept grammatical and spelling errors on the front page, local citizens' names spelled incorrectly in news stories, and, seemingly, an editorial fixation on the inane babblings of ridiculous, tedious observational columnists whom they think give the publication a nice, down-home feel...

You can forget about hard-hitting investigative reporting, you can forget about interesting feature stories (unless your definition of "interesting" includes the same rehashed "Sam Phillips was God" story they manage to run six times a year), and you can forget about ANYONE paying much attention to the Classified section-- they don't start working on that until they have your money, by which point, it's too late.

For anyone who hasn't already heard me rant on this subject, the reason there are so many spelling, grammar, and factual errors is because the people at the TimesDaily who pass for "copy editors" and "fact checkers" do nothing more than run a spellcheck program on the articles as they are submitted by the writer and flee the office for home as early as possible...

Thus, we see mistakes along the lines of "the car plunged off the embankment after the breaks failed, according to officials on the scene".

You see, spellcheck won't strike the incorrect usage of "breaks" instead of "brakes" because "breaks" IS a correctly spelled word, even though it is not the word that was intended to be used.

Good copy editing (a thing I know a little about) requires a living, breathing human being with a sharp eye, who generally reads the story backwards, starting at the last paragraph and working his or her way to the first paragraph so as not to be accidentally distracted by the content of the story and which makes the mistakes much more obvious.

This is clearly not the policy at the TimesDaily-- and if it IS the policy, heads should have rolled long ago. So one must conclude that the TimesDaily has grown comfortable with its monopoly on the local readership, and doesn't really care WHAT you think...

Bottom line: the TimesDaily is not a legitimate news publication. It is a publicity tool of the city of Florence, UNA, and any advertisers who are standing around with money to spend. As for you, the reader, you're not even a blip on their radar and you never will be.

selah,
bc
Last edited {1}
FatNoMo,

cuz th' folks whut run th' TD wud be two imbareassed two hav sumone wit mah levell o eddication an' class makin dem awl looke bad.

yew must lahk it de way it be, er elts yew wouldnna be own hear tryin' to sticks up fer em...

Oh, and I love your avatar; it displays your gentlemanly qualities nicely, and doesn't at all make you look like a total douchebag. Really, it doesn't.

It also doesn't make me think that you must be the child who was sired in the love scene in "Deliverance." Not a bit. Didn't even cross my mind.

Wait...yes it did...
quote:
Originally posted by bcabler:
FatNoMo,

cuz th' folks whut run th' TD wud be two imbareassed two hav sumone wit mah levell o eddication an' class makin dem awl looke bad.



If I may interject, you have made a most excellent point here. Now run that through spell-check before you publish it. And hurry up while you're at it, because we're trying to get out of here in time for Happy Hour. Get your priorities straight.
Hey BCABLER! Who peed in your Cheerios? I don’t want to fight with anybody (well, maybe pba . . .). I was just making the point to not be so critical of print errors. Trust me, there are many papers in our area with tons more errors than I see here.

Oh, and about my avatar – the tongue scene is a long way from my favorite scene – this was just the coolest Jack Sparrow avatar I could find. I’m sorry you think it makes me look like a douche bag. Would you like me to change it? I will if you want me to.
I'm not looking to 'fight' either; I simply disagree with you over the importance of a newspaper fraught with stupid errors that could have been fixed. I think it looks bad when the local paper can't place a little more emphasis on professionalism.

As for 'other papers in the area', I assume you mean the Courier Journal? That's really just a glorified advertising circular. The East Lauderdale News? Sorry, but I don't count it.

The TimesDaily is part of the New York Times Group, and pays its top dawgs enough that it shouldn't look like a little dog-and-pony rag.

And, hey, your avatar's fine with me: if that's how you want to represent yourself, I'd fight a war for your right to do so. It's just a little bit at odds with your signature quote, which is so laden with hubris that it practically defines the term.

I'm sure there's something in your professional life, whatever that may be, that if you saw others doing badly would make your blood pressure rise. I've studied and practiced journalism, I strive to employ good grammar and to have a strong vocabulary spoken in unaccented Standard American English, and thus spelling and factual mistakes in newspapers stick in my craw more they do for others.

If you worked as, say, a construction worker and saw someone pouring a concrete slab in the rain and expressed your dismay, would you like to have someone suggest that maybe your Cheerios had been laced with urine and that you should lighten up? I doubt it...

Therefore, when your response amounted to a provacative insinuation that I'm overreacting to something that doesn't happen to bother YOU, I pulled out my own sarcasm and hit you back in kind. That's what happens when you annoy a guy who wishes deep down he were a stand-up comedian...

I've been irritated by the mistake-riddled TimesDaily since I began reading it every day at the age of six, and I will continue to bash them for it every time I get the chance...until they fix it and hire some folks who are at least semi-literate to proof the paper...and for the record, I DID present my excellent credentials to them a few years ago along with a cover letter reeking with humility and asking if I could come in for a proofreading test to demonstrate my ability, but they didn't want to talk to me because I dated someone who works there fifteen years ago, and she seemingly has enough pull to veto my chances of getting on board at the TD out of plain old spite.

So, I will snipe and snipe away at them until they get their act together.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. If you can't join 'em, razz the everloving #@$% out of 'em.
Last edited by bcabler
I do not mean to infer arrogance with my quote. This is a plaque I keep on my desk as a constant reminder to myself to try to treat my fellow man with more kindness than I usually feel.

I like that you fully explained your reason for being irritated by errors in the newspaper. It does make your criticism more significant than just an “I’ve got nothing better to do that cut down the paper” remark.

Most of all it is refreshing to read your posts. The eloquence with which you write is refreshing.

P.S. I wasn’t speaking of the Courier Journal --- Ooo! Ooo! I found an error!!!!!!!!!!
FatNoMo,

Your explanation suits me as well as mine seems to suit you. Thanks for the vote of confidence (NO sarcasm intended).

And the fact that you noticed my own omission of a letter in my post serves as an excellent microcosmic example of the problem with the TimesDaily: it's hard to be your own editor, which is why you need to have a 'safety net' of qualified individuals who are detached enough from the writing to find and correct the mistakes.

You and I have just proven what it takes to get things right: you pointed out my mistake, and now if you'll scroll upward to my post, you'll see that it's BEEN CORRECTED. This is what DOESN'T happen at the TimesDaily, because their folks are lazy, underskilled, or too distracted with their internal intrigues to worry about it.

Nobody should be expected to get everything right on their own-- it distracts from the flow of your writing if you're overly concerned with being letter-perfect. Thus, newspapers have a separate staff to proof the publication before printing it. Well, MOST newspapers...

peace and goodwill,

b
Hey, FatNoMo, we're Kool and the Gang, to borrow a line from "Pulp Fiction"...

The only people with whom I seem to have trouble getting along are those who lack a sense of humor and those who have their minds made up before they hear the facts, and resist changing their minds once they HAVE heard the facts...

Welcome to the board...
quote:
Originally posted by bcabler:
The answer is:

The same thing that's ALWAYS up with the TimesDaily...underqualified bush league "journalists" insulated from public scorn by the largely oblivious readership who fail to be concerned about childishly inept grammatical and spelling errors on the front page, local citizens' names spelled incorrectly in news stories, and, seemingly, an editorial fixation on the inane babblings of ridiculous, tedious observational columnists whom they think give the publication a nice, down-home feel...

You can forget about hard-hitting investigative reporting, you can forget about interesting feature stories (unless your definition of "interesting" includes the same rehashed "Sam Phillips was God" story they manage to run six times a year), and you can forget about ANYONE paying much attention to the Classified section-- they don't start working on that until they have your money, by which point, it's too late.

For anyone who hasn't already heard me rant on this subject, the reason there are so many spelling, grammar, and factual errors is because the people at the TimesDaily who pass for "copy editors" and "fact checkers" do nothing more than run a spellcheck program on the articles as they are submitted by the writer and flee the office for home as early as possible...

Thus, we see mistakes along the lines of "the car plunged off the embankment after the breaks failed, according to officials on the scene".

You see, spellcheck won't strike the incorrect usage of "breaks" instead of "brakes" because "breaks" IS a correctly spelled word, even though it is not the word that was intended to be used.

Good copy editing (a thing I know a little about) requires a living, breathing human being with a sharp eye, who generally reads the story backwards, starting at the last paragraph and working his or her way to the first paragraph so as not to be accidentally distracted by the content of the story and which makes the mistakes much more obvious.

This is clearly not the policy at the TimesDaily-- and if it IS the policy, heads should have rolled long ago. So one must conclude that the TimesDaily has grown comfortable with its monopoly on the local readership, and doesn't really care WHAT you think...

Bottom line: the TimesDaily is not a legitimate news publication. It is a publicity tool of the city of Florence, UNA, and any advertisers who are standing around with money to spend. As for you, the reader, you're not even a blip on their radar and you never will be.

selah,
bc


Wow, this was an excellent post.

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