The Cranky Copy Editor

Worst error ever?

2011-12-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

If this copy editor didn't lose his or her job, I'll eat a newspaper.

Students blogging again

2011-08-30T18:40:00.001-07:00

My Reporting Contemporary Issues students are creating blogs. They will cover Greeley City Council twice a month and write about what happens on their blogs. Tonight we went over the agenda for the last meeting, and nothing stood out as especially interesting. I hope they don't all drop the class after that.

Pictures, words and women

2011-05-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

I taught the Mass Communication and Gender class this spring. It went really well. Students did some interesting projects and seemed to learn a lot. But when it comes to comm and gender, some people still have a lot to learn.

My son got a neat game for his sixth birthday. It's called "Guess Who," and he really enjoys playing it. I am troubled by it, though. The point of the game is to use guesses as clues to find out who your opponent is. The board features 24 faces. Five are female. This just doesn't seem right to me. About half the population is female. Children learn a lot by playing games. What are they to learn when only five out of 24 faces are female?

If you care about issues of fairness in communication, you should check out the writings of Kate Swift. Swift, who died in early May, did a lot of work on sexism in language. As she and her co-author Casey Miller wrote in Words and Women,

everything we read, heard on the radio and television, or worked on professionally confirmed our new awareness that the way English is used to make the simplest points can either acknowledge women’s full humanity or relegate the female half of the species to secondary status.

Swift and Casey called attention to some of the blatantly sexist phrases in English and helped change the way words were used. For instance, they pointed out that when women were talked about, they were usually talked about in terms of their looks. The use of "firefighter" instead of "fireman" can be traced to their work. Read the New York Times obituary.

Did you really make the finals?

2011-05-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

More on quotation marks. They should only be used when QUOTING something. This means they should be used when you're using someone else's exact words.

The quotation marks on this trophy are unnecessary because nothing is being quoted. The quote marks actually make the trophy look stupid because they imply that the winner was not really a finalist. I guess it could be a trophy presented to someone who played a tennis player in a show.

My first podcast

2011-04-28T14:13:00.001-07:00

I decided to enter the 21st century and recorded a podcast. Let me know if you think I should stick to print.

The media get their due

2011-04-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

The semester is winding down, and the grading is heating up. I'm almost through with my second group of papers of the day. I've run across many errors, of course, but two stand out because they are so common.

The first is the misuse of the word "media." It's an important word for us journalists, and when students mess it up we tend to get angry. "No, no," you say. "The Cranky Copy Editor gets angry?" It's a fact. I do. On with our post.

The word media is plural. This seems to be a difficult concept for students to grasp, but it's true. Contrary to popular belief, the following is grammatically correct:

The media are quite influential.

Media is the plural form of "medium." So this is also correct:

My favorite medium is newspapers.

This is confusing because most English words are made plural by adding "s," and this is an exception. But it's one journalism and mass communications students should know.

The second error I've encountered a lot today is noun-pronoun disagreement. In English, pronouns must agree with the nouns they follow. For instance, in the following sentence, the pronoun does not agree with its noun:

A reporter needs to keep their opinions out of the stories they write.

We're only talking about one reporter, so the word is singular. Therefore, the pronoun that follows should be "his or her," not "their." An easy way to fix this is to change "reporter" to "reporters," as in the following:

Reporters need to keep their opinions out of the stories they write.

I tend to suggest this change to avoid the cumbersome use of "his or her," as in the following:

A reporter needs to keep his or her opinions out of the stories he or she writes.

I tell my students to avoid the use of "he" when gender is not known because it's sexist. But that's a topic for another post. ...

Somebody call PETA!

2011-03-24T15:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Food Network for this one.

Order on the court

2011-03-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

My university is hosting the Big Sky men's basketball tournament, so everyone in Greeley is very excited. The local paper, together with our campus paper, even put out a special section. One of the ads in the section caught my attention. The ad, for our on-campus bookstore, includes the following sentence:

Check out our website on Wednesday, March 9 to preorder your championship gear!

This ad looks like a jinx waiting to bite. But more importantly to those interested in writing, "preorder" is not a word. There is no way to "preorder" something, even a championship T-shirt. Even the spell checker, which is the dumbest thing I've ever encountered, knows it's not a word.

The prefix "pre" means "before." So wouldn't "preordering" mean that you bought the T-shirt before the team had won the championship? How would that be possible? You could order something in advance, but in advance of what? What does the "pre" in "preorder" actually refer to? Does it mean you get to order your stuff before everyone else, or before it goes onsale? I don't know how that would work.

Usually, the prefix "pre" is used before a noun to form an adjective. For instance, a preseason game is one that occurs before the season starts and a pregame ritual is something a player does before a game begins. The use of "pre" with the verb "order" makes for an awkward word that doesn't make sense.

Good luck Bears!

Were they that scared?

2011-02-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

I've got everyone in the office looking for errors. Sheri, our administrative assistant, found this one in The (Greeley) Tribune.

University of Northern Colorado women's basketball team runs away from Sacramento State University

The Bears did not run away from their opponents. They ran away with the win. A better headline would have read "University of Northern Colorado women's basketball team runs away with win over Sacramento State University."

I'm not being mean; I mean it

2011-01-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

One of my colleagues at the University of Northern Colorado brought this error to my attention. We've both found it popping up on student papers recently. Here's the problem:

Jane Smith is a journalism professor. Meaning she teaches journalism at a university.

That's not two sentences. It's a sentence and a sentence fragment. "Meaning that..." is not a full sentence because it cannot stand on its own. This means that it should be connected to the first sentence. Did you see how I avoided the error in that last sentence?

The proper sentence would look like this:

Jane Smith is a journalism professor, which means she teaches journalism at a university.

Notice that I didn't say "... meaning that she teaches journalism ...." I just don't like the sound of that. Also, notice that I used four dots instead of three at the end of the sentence that began this paragraph. Three dots (an ellipses) indicates a pause. Four dots (or an ellipses with a period) indicates a pause followed by the end of a sentence. Paying attention to little things like this makes your writing that much better. And that means a lot.

You just can't make this stuff up

2011-01-13T13:44:00.000-08:00

What a headline!

Your verb needs corrected

2010-12-22T19:15:00.000-08:00

The following sentence, taken from a paper which shall remain nameless, is just wrong. W-R-O-N-G:

Reilly said Moreno outlined four things that needed corrected before the petition could be approved.

It should be "needed to be corrected" or "needed correcting." I just hate that mistake. It's made far too often in spoken and written English these days. Please try to avoid it.

Read my students' blogs

2010-12-22T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'm teaching a class called "Blogging for Journalists" over winter break. It's only four weeks, but I think that's enough time to start a blog and get the idea of how to post.

The students' blogs are interesting. We've got lots of cool topics, from banned books to basketball. Check out the links on the right of this page.

One thing I'm trying to emphasize in this course is that blogging is about more than opinions. It's about research and facts and good, clear writing. Some of the students have a lot of journalism classes under their belts, and it show. Others are a little raw. I think they're all enjoying it. It'll be fun to see how the blogs progress in the next three weeks.

Did you take an English class?

2010-12-09T11:14:00.000-08:00

Saw an interesting ad for Red Rocks Community College today. The ad was on a bus stop near my gym. Next to a photo of a smiling, seemingly intelligent young man was the following sentence:

I started at Red Rocks, now I'm at a four-year college.

The man supposedly saying this needs to take an English class. That is, if any English professors still teach grammar and punctuation, which I highly doubt.

What's wrong with this sentence? Some folks call it a comma splice. I call it a run-on sentence. What you've got is two sentences that both can stand alone, separated by a comma. But you can't use a comma that way. It's incorrect comma usage, for goodness sake! You need to put a period between the sentences. You could use a semicolon, if you're so inclined. Or, you could add the word "and" after the comma.

Don't get me wrong. Red Rocks is a great school. It's just that the people in the marketing department need to get in touch with those in the English department the next time they write an advertisement. This is yet another reason why it's imperative for advertising students to take writing and editing classes seriously.

He's just doing his job

2010-11-18T12:59:00.001-08:00

Check out this photo on The Denver Post website. It accompanies a story about pat downs at the Denver International Airport. I know that's what the story is about, but I don't know if I'd run this one. Call me a prude, but I'm worried about the effect publication would have on those pictured. There are other interesting photos at the Post website. Would you run them?

Stop stereotyping journalists!

2010-11-16T10:52:00.001-08:00

I'm reading another great novel by Jodi Picoult. This one is called "Nineteen Minutes," and it's as captivating as her other books. But like everything else, this book ain't perfect.

The story involves a high school student who kills 10 of his classmates after being bullied all his life. While in jail awaiting trial, he receives a letter from someone who says she's a graduate student researching the effects of bullying. It turns out that the letter writer is actually a reporter for Time magazine, trying to get a story. This is an old, sorry stereotype of journalists, and I wish writers would stop using it. I have never heard of a case of a reporter lying to get a story like this.

The fact that a popular, talented writer like Picoult would perpetuate this stereotype offends me. And it should offend all journalists. Yes, a few reporters have lied over the years. Yes, a few reporters have made up or plagiarized stories. But it seems like every time a journalist is a character in a novel or movie, he or she is portrayed as unethical. Can we please get some good journalists into the mix? After all, the overwhelming majority of journalists are ethical.

Please let writers know about this post. Thanks.

When was that?

2010-11-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest problems my students have is unclear writing. This is a problem because when readers can't understand something, they may just stop reading it. Clarity is especially important for journalists who want to go into television or radio news. Broadcast news must be clear because viewers and listeners can't reread what they don't understand.

I came across some unclear writing today in Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine for journalists. You'd think that such a magazine would want to avoid unclear writing at all costs, if only to escape snarky readers like me. Here's the lead that confused me:

"In 1974, Jack Klunder, president and publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News, discovered that his 1966 Ford Mustang had been stolen from a college parking lot."

(I don't know if Klunder's Mustang was red, but I really like Mustangs, and I found this photo online.)

That's confusing in two places, come the think of it. First, the sentence implies that Klunder was the president and publisher of the newspaper in 1974. But that's not the case, according to the rest of the story. To fix this, the writer might have written "In 1974, Jack Klunder, now president and publisher ..."

The second problem stems from the fact that the author includes two years in the sentence. It's just plain confusing. I had a teacher in college who told us "numbers are numbing." It's true. The more figures a sentence contains, the more confusing it becomes. I would solve this problem by inserting the model year of the car a bit later in the story.

Clarity is worth working toward. If you find something in this post that seems unclear, post a comment.

Keeping the election in context

2010-11-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

One thing journalists don't do enough of it put events into context. You can throw facts at the audience all you want, but to really tell the story, you have to tell them what those facts mean. Brendan Nyhan discusses what the media did wrong on this front in a piece in the Huffington Post. He covers both sides well.

One problem seems to be that it's too easy to analyze statistics. You can make statistics back up just about any point. But what people often forget is that correlation not the same as causation. Here's one example from Nyhan's story:

Under the headline "Crushed," Josh Marshall noted that "Of the 39 Dems who voted against Health Care Reform, 12 are going to be returning in the next Congress," suggesting that opposition to reform was a cause of these members' defeats. However, he failed to note that most of anti-HCR members represented competitive districts and that vulnerable Democrats who opposed reform appeared to perform somewhat better than their pro-HCR counterparts.

Well said!

2010-10-31T18:34:00.000-07:00

Sign spotted at the Rally to Restore Sanity.

Because they said so

2010-10-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here's an update on the Bally's/Ballys post. I contacted Bally's, which apparently is owned by Harrah's. (Not Harrahs.) Not that this answers any questions, but it is good to know someone got back to me.

I just received word from our Marketing Department. They stated that the sign was completed well before our time so we are not exactly sure of the actual reasoning behind it, but traditionally when the BALLY’S logo is executed as a vertical, the apostrophe is dropped so that may be why it is without on the sign.

So it seems it's a vertical/horizontal thing. Like if Bally's stands up, it loses its lap and its apostrophe. I still don't like the way it looks. Maybe we could do an e-mail campaign in which people complained about this. If you're interested, go to the Bally's Las Vegas website and click on "contact us" on the top menu.

Did Bally's lose a bet?

2010-10-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Did Bally's lose its apostrophe by betting on the Red Sox?

Went to Las Vegas for the first time this weekend. Had a blast with my college friends. But was quite disappointed in in the giant signs Bally's has on the side of its hotel and casino. (See image at left.)

The apostrophe seems to have vanished, much like my money did in the slot machines. I saw at least three signs with no punctuation.

But when we had breakfast, the coffee cups clearly included the apostrophe. So which is it? The official website indicates the name of the hotel is Bally's. A little consistency would be appreciated.

Say what?

2010-09-30T11:22:00.001-07:00

Read the subhead, if you can.

Why bother?

2010-09-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

A state-run Egyptian newspaper doctored a photo from the recent talks between Israel and Palestinian leaders. The question is, why? The Egyptians were not leading the talks. The talks were not even about Egypt. So why would the Egyptian paper change the photo to put President Hosni Mubarak in front of President Obama? It just seems silly to me.

That's not a word

2010-09-02T18:54:00.001-07:00

Just found an interesting error on the official site of the Boston Red Sox. It should say "Surgery might be inevitable for Pedroia's foot." I'm not sure what the headline is implying. Anybody know what "sugery" means?

2010-09-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

Read any guy's lit lately?

2010-08-25T14:16:00.001-07:00

Just read a great piece by NPR's Linda Holmes. The title of the column is "Women are not Marshmallow Peeps, and other reasons there's no 'chick lit.'" The best line, IMHO, is this:

But at this point, I think the only solution is to stay away from the term "chick lit" as much as humanly possible, because it's become a term that means "by and about women, and not something you need to take seriously...."

And her other great point: Why don't we categorize books about men as "guy's lit"? Just something to ponder.

Jobs in journalism growing

2010-08-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

Jobs in journalism growing

Its a cute blog

2010-08-20T20:12:00.001-07:00

I found this today. It's got some interesting stuff. (And yes, I know I left out the apostrophe in the headline. I did it on purpose.)

Get the lead out

2010-08-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Why am I surprised by anything anymore? I spotted a very silly error in Scott Turow's op-ed column in today's New York Times. Turow writes:

The measure was never ratified by the Legislature, while her offer of $1,000 lead directly to her conviction for bribery in the Illinois courts.

The past tense of "lead" is "led." It's not an error that spell-check will catch, so you have to actually proofread your work. "What's proofreading?" you ask? It's a long-forgotten skill that, if practiced correctly, might save you from embarrassment.

Good edit

2010-08-16T16:14:00.001-07:00

Update: Just in time for the beginning of the school year, my online friend Mark Johnson photo-shopped this fix of the misspelling on a North Carolina road.

Very cool, mark.

Hot hot wheels wheels

2010-08-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

My son has had this Hot Wheels toy for over a year, but I just noticed the error on the box yesterday. Does that mean my copy editing skills are declining, or that I'm just less cranky?

Click on the photo and look on the left for the typo. You see why every office needs a copy editor.

What about dad?

2010-08-13T14:26:00.001-07:00

I was struck by the juxtaposition of two stories in The New York Times earlier this week. One was a magazine article about stock car racer Dale Earnhardt Jr., the other a sports feature on New York Liberty power forward Taj McWilliams-Franklin. Both were well done, but they also replayed old stereotypes about what is expected of mothers and fathers in our society.

The McWilliams-Franklin story focused on how her travel schedule impacted her relationship with her daughters. It was part of the Times' series "Motherhood in Play." The Earnhardt piece discussed how Junior missed out on a relationship with his father, also a racing superstar.

These two ideas seem related, no? Yet why is there never a story on how pro sports affects fatherhood? The McWilliams-Franklin story told readers that 11 mothers play in the WNBA. I know it must be difficult for their families, but isn't it also difficult for all the families of fathers who play in the NBA?

The WNBA story actually quoted a social psychologist saying the following about the fact that McWilliams-Franklin's youngest daughter is cared for by the girl's father. "The ideal arrangement if you have to leave a young child is to leave it with a relative." Really? You mean, somebody like the kid's dad?

The stories seem to say that men being away from their families is the norm, although it may result in missed relationships, but women being away is abnormal. Subtle sexism is still sexism.

Headline here

2010-08-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

My mom found this in the Chapel Hill News. Click on the image and look under the photo to see the error. In case you were wondering, the author's name is Mark Zimmerman.

Unfortunately, it's a fairly common mistake, probably because we don't have enough copy editors looking at pages. And the copy editors we do have don't have the time to do their work properly.

Read the entire column online.

Did you spell check that one?

2010-08-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

This comes from Southern Guilford County in North Carolina. That's North Carolina, home of the Tra Heels, Woofpack and Bule Divels. Read the story.

Is this libel?

2010-05-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

This Denver Post story really got it wrong.

Click on the graphic and read the fifth graph.

Poskey is the family friend who released the statement. I think the author meant Robert Laurencio Montoya, the boyfriend.

See how easy it is to make a mistake that can get you in trouble?

Class Web site: Latest edition

2010-04-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

Check out the latest edition of the 410 Forum, with stories by students in my Advanced News class. These students are really good writers.

Check out my new Facebook page

2010-04-05T08:07:00.001-07:00

Cause blogs are so last Thursday. Follow the Crank on Facebook at The Cranky Copy Editor.

This dad's got his own club

2010-03-20T15:17:00.000-07:00

Saw a T-shirt at the mall that said the following:

D.A.D.D.
Dad's Against Daughters Dating

The problem is the apostrophe. It means one of two things. It could mean that the word is possessive. But there's nothing for it to possess. So that doesn't make sense. It could mean that the apostrophe stands in for a missing letter. So it could mean "dad is" against daughters dating. That kind of makes sense, if the creator is talking about just one dad. But not if the creator intended "D.A.D.D." to take after MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions).

It should be "Dads Against Daughters Dating." That way, the word "dads" is plural, which means the club can include more than one dad.

Are you sure about that?

2010-03-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

Call the ASPCA! In case you can't read the image, the small headline on the left says:

"No one hurt, but family dog is killed."

We're online

2010-03-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

My JMC410 class has done some great work so far this semester, and it's online at our class Web site, The 410 Forum. Please check it out.

Another fact not checked

2010-03-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

The sports editor at The Star Press in Muncie, Ind., had to apologize in print this week for getting a story completely wrong. Seems a guy by the same name as a local athletic director applied for a job at a different school. Oops. Why did they wait until it was the middle of the night to call the guy for a comment? They'd been chasing the story all day. Unbelievable.

Funniest headlines of all time

2010-02-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

These classics remind us that the best "head" writers have the dirtiest minds.

Worth watching

2010-02-22T15:40:00.001-08:00

Just finished watching "Control Room," a documentary about Al Jazeera, an Arab-language news outlet. It told the story of the network, as well as the story of how the War in Iraq was managed by the U.S. military. I got the impression that Al Jazeera covered the war better than most of the U.S. news outlets. I highly recommend this movie.

And some sad news. I had forgotten that a correspondent from Al Jazeera was killed when U.S. planes bombed the station's Baghdad offices. It just reminds you of how deadly journalism can be. Very sad.

Did you Chek that?

2010-02-18T13:57:00.000-08:00

I love newspapers because they're permanent. A Web site might be edited every five minutes, but a printed newspaper is here to stay. And that's why mistakes in print are so much worse than those online or on video. Of course, they all stink in my book.

One of my former news writing students found this headline, from our local paper, The (Greeley) Tribune. The name of the writer is Anton Chekhov. I know it's a Russian name, and those Russian names are so hard to spell. But that's why we fact check. And when it comes to fact-checking, names are the most important thing to check, or Chekhov, if you will. And fact-checking is rather easy, thanks to the Web. All you have to do is Google the name as you think it's spelled, and Google will come up with the right name. That's what I did for this post. I put in "Checkhov" and Google corrected me.

I guess nobody bothered to tell the editors at The Tribune, because as I write this, four days after publication of the offending headline, the paper's Web site still contains the misspelling.

Student newspaper threatened

2010-02-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

Virginia Tech officials have threatened to pull the funding for the school's newspaper unless the paper stops accepting anonymous Web comments. The general manager of the Collegiate Times says her paper will sue if the school pulls it $70,000 in annual funding.

I support the paper, of course. Although I'm not a fan of anonymous posts, it's standard practice at professional papers. I don't think officials at Virginia Tech have the right to pull the funding over this. The purpose of a student newspaper is to teach students how to be professional journalists. I believe that campus papers should be held to the same high standards of ethics and fact checking that other papers must meet, and I also believe they should be allowed the same First Amendment rights as professional papers.

And look -- somebody agrees with me.

Although the Collegiate Times is independent, it still gets money from the school. That's pretty common. The Mirror, UNC's student paper, has a similar arrangement.

Oh no he didn't

2010-02-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman. In this 2005 book, Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, explores how technology and globalization have "flattened" the globe.

It's a good book so far, but I have a big problem with the editing. Friedman quotes someone as saying that the flattening of the world is a fundamental development equal to "Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, the rise of the nation state, and the industrial revolution."

News flash: Gutenberg didn't invent the printing press. In about 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented a press that used a system of movable type. This made printing cheaper and faster. Movable type and the printing press both were invented in Asia long before Gutenberg came along.

I do wish otherwise intelligent people would stop reinforcing the myth that Gutenberg invented the printing press. Especially if those people are journalists. They should know better.

Students take to the blogosphere

2010-02-09T10:50:00.000-08:00

Once again my students are blogging. See the links list on the left. According to one of our textbooks, "Journalism Next: A Practical Guide to Digital Reporting and Publishing" by Mark Briggs, every college student should have a blog. I hope these stand out for their great writing and insight.

We are also in the planning stages of the class Web site. We'll be updating last year's site, the 410 Forum. It should be online next month. I'm planning more photos and a cleaner look to the site. Students are in the process of writing day in the life stories. I think these stories will be fun to read.

I'll have the fried ricc

2010-02-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

Was driving back from Aurora (don't ask) the other day and saw the following on a sign:

Chiness Food

I believe it was a restaurant, but I'm not sure what they're selling. Any ideas?

They 'Lost' the punctuation, too

2010-02-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

I'm in heaven right now because I just watched the first episode of the final season of my all-time favorite show, "Lost." I don't have cable, so I had to watch it on abc.com. The story is so good I hardly noticed that the picture quality is only fair.

I bring this up because of an egregious punctuation error that I had to watch during several commercials. It was a Verizon/ABC ad. Here's the sentence:

Will the islands origins be revealed?

The word "islands" should be possessive, so there should be an apostrophe before the "s." Without the apostrophe, it's just plural. So the sentence doesn't make sense.

Understanding punctuation might seem so 20th century, but it means a lot when your message is going over the Internet for millions to see.

Sitting in on history

2010-02-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. Back then, blacks weren't served at lunch counters in the South. Four North Carolina A&T students sat down and ordered coffee and doughnuts and refused to move until they were served. They were arrested. Word of their peaceful protest spread, thanks to newspaper and network TV news, and more students took up the cause throughout the South.

Howell Raines covered the civil rights movement and later served as executive editor of The New York Times. In an op-ed piece in today's Times, Raines, recounts how the news media helped fuel the sit-in movement.

It took only one national telecast of Nashville students being assaulted at the lunch counters to demonstrate that segregation everywhere depended on the unconstitutional application of police brutality.

He also discusses how today's news media, so different than that of 1960, might have affected the movement differently.

Surely the civil rights movement would have been hampered by the politicized, oppositional journalism that flows from Fox News and the cable talk shows.

Being a good journalist means being ethical and responsible. It also means having an awareness of the injustices of the past, and of the present.

Game on

2010-01-29T13:26:00.000-08:00

Teaching sports reporting this semester. Took my students to the Northern Colorado men's basketball game last night. UNC lost to Montana by two points.

It was the first time I'd been to a UNC game since the team went to Division I. Last time I was there, the only ones in the stands were the players' parents and a few 12-year-olds.

The place was packed for the Montana game. And they sell beer now.

I attended the press conference to get quotes for my students. It was like going back in time. Except this time I used a laptop instead of a reporter's notebook.

Time to read the stories my students wrote.

Tweet this

2010-01-28T12:40:00.001-08:00

My students are tweeting. That must be a good thing, right? A reporter from The (Greeley) Tribune discussed Twitter in my Advanced News and Feature Writing class last week. Jacob Rodgers, a 2009 UNC graduate with a journalism degree, covers education and tweets all the time. To follow Rodgers on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/JakobRodgers.

Some of the students in the class are taking Rodgers' speech to heart. The school paper, The Mirror, will be tweeting live from two sporting events this week. Mitchell Woll, a student in the class, will be tweeting from UNC's wrestling match against Oklahoma Friday, and a reporter will be tweeting from tonight's men's basketball game against Montana. The sports editor, Jordan Freemyer, is also a student in my class, and he might be the reason for this leap into the Twitter universe. I haven't seen any tweets in the paper before this. You can check out the tweets at the following sites: twitter.com/mitchell_woll and twitter.com/uncmirror.

I'm glad these students are taking the initiative, and I look forward to reading the tweets. I hope more student journalists will take advantage of social media in the future. College is an opportunity to try news things and see if they work for you. Way to go, Mitchell and Jordan.

It's not just for breakfast

2010-01-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

My facebook friend Mike alerted me to this post, which includes some important rules that everyone should follow, journalist or not. It's from The Oatmeal, an interesting Web site, to say the least.

Outsourced editing

2009-12-11T06:19:00.001-08:00

Wow. Didn't know this was happening.

Nielsen folds Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews

2009-12-10T14:09:00.000-08:00

Nielsen folds Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews

What a great class

2009-12-09T09:17:00.001-08:00

My students have outdone themselves this time. Their work on the Gree-ality Web site was above and beyond. They wrote some great stories on the City Council's impact on UNC students. They also took photos and created a video that is pretty darn hilarious, imho.

Missing the local story

2009-12-09T09:16:00.001-08:00

Missing the local story — Again

Posted using ShareThis

Error sullies sportswriter's good name

2009-12-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

I was excited to see that Marion Jones is attempting a comeback in basketball. According to a story by William C. Rhoden of The New York Times, Jones is practicing in anticipation of playing for the Women's National Basketball Association this summer.

Unfortunately, the story contained a major error. (It's been corrected on the Web site, but it will always be there in print.) In the original article, Rhoden wrote that the last time Jones played organized basketball was during her freshman year at the University of North Carolina in 1994-95. As a point guard, Jones was a key cog in the Heels' run to the national championship. But that was not her final season on the court.

After missing her sophomore season with a broken foot, Jones led the team to a 29-3 record in 1996-97. Jones skipped her senior year to concentrate on track. She won five medals at the 2000 Olympics but lost them all after she admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.

A simple call or e-mail to the UNC athletics department would have helped Rhoden avoid the error.

The reason I caught this error is because I covered a few ACC basketball games in 1996-97 for The Herald-Sun in Durham, N.C. Simply put, Jones was spectacular. Her speed and court savvy, combined with Tracy Reid's play in the paint, made the Heels fun to watch. And I'm not just saying that because I got my master's degree at UNC.

I love Rhoden's writing. But from now on, every time I read one of his articles, I'll question all the facts. That's why checking facts is so important.

Boy, this is annoying!

2009-11-12T13:48:00.001-08:00

One great thing about the Internet is that anyone can be a publisher. The problem is that anyone can be a publisher. Most people have no training in the hows and whys of journalism. Take the new Facebook group I came across today. It's called "University of Northern Colorado Men's and Girl's Basketball."

Yes, you read it right. Stop spitting coffee on your computer screen.

Is it 2009, or 1959? This is insulting, people. If you don't understand why, ask yourself why it's not "boy's" basketball. It's just plain mean to refer to "men" and "girls" and expect readers to see them as equals. Get it? If not, go to the AP Stylebook. My 2009 edition has the following under the "girl" entry:

Applicable until 18th birthday is reached. Use woman or young woman afterward.

I realize many 17-year-olds attend college, but because most females at universities are 18 and older, I tell students to use "women" in reference to college students when specific age is not known. Here's another way to look at it: Would you use "boys" or "men"? Women goes with men. Girls goes with boys.

Better yet, go to UNC's athletics Web page. You won't find any "girls" or "boys." I'm getting kind of sick of having to spell this out for people. As far as I'm concerned, if women want to refer to themselves as "girls," they can go for it. But if you're trying to support a team, have a little consideration for what people of my mother's generation went through so that women could even play Division I college basketball.

The name's the same

2009-11-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

It looks like Greeley's new mayor is Tom Norton, husband of UNC President Kay Norton. Talk about a power couple.

Anyone think Phillipsen would have won had he endorsed medical marijuana two weeks ago?

Election night at The Tribune

2009-11-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

I spent Tuesday evening at the offices of The Tribune, Greeley's newspaper. I wanted my Reporting Contemporary Issues students to experience election night in a real newsroom. We sat in on the page 1 meeting, which was quite interesting. The planning that goes into covering events like this is fascinating. At least it is for me.

It was fun. I don't know yet what the students thought. The students laughed at some things, seemed bored by others. That's to be expected, I guess.

I got a little bit nostalgic being there. Wonder if I'll ever work in a newsroom again. Probably not. I hope my students do.

Found out recently that two students in the class are interested in copy editing. Anyone need an intern?

I'm excited about the Greeley mayor and City Council races. The mayor's race is too close to call. The latest results are available at the Weld County Web site.

We are online

2009-10-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

My students have completed the first series of stories for our Gree-ality Web site. The stories are profiles of the candidates running for City Council. More to come after the election.

Someone likes what we're doing

2009-10-21T14:45:00.001-07:00

Greeley blogger Jane Paudaux likes our student blogs.

Students blogging City Council

2009-10-20T13:27:00.001-07:00

My Reporting Contemporary Issues class has begun blogging. They are covering Greeley's City Council. The meetings are the first and third Tuesdays of the month. So far students have only blogged on one meeting. Their second post is due by midnight tonight. Click on the link on the left to view the blogs.

I like the idea of blogging on deadline. It allows students to cover a meeting in a new way. We'll see how it goes.

Students in this class will also be publishing a Web site focused on how City Council elections will affect UNC students. Candidate profiles will begin running next Tuesday. I'll link to the site once the first story is published.

Journalists must change thinking

2009-10-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

Great read here by Alan D. Mutter about how journalists can keep their craft alive, if only they begin to think differently.

Apps for journalistic iPhone fans

2009-09-30T19:28:00.001-07:00

Just saw this at Poynter online -- the best apps for journalists who use the iPhone or iPod Touch. There is also a link to the best Blackberry programs for journalists, if you're so inclined. I checked out the AP Stylebook app, but it seems to be pretty pricey.

Farewell to a language guru

2009-09-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

New York Times veteran William Safire was a great writer. He died last week. Safire was a speechwriter in the Nixon White House and later won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He also was the longtime writer of the "On Language" column in the Times magazine. Maureen Dowd's column is a great sendoff. Or is that send-off? If only I could ask Safire.

I won't add any unnecessary adjectives to describe him because they might cause Safire to turn over in his grave. I will, however, tip my AP Stylebook to the man who penned both “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”

The ultimate mistake?

2009-09-23T14:45:00.001-07:00

Has there EVER been a better protest sign than this one?

If you can find a better example of bad proofreading, let me know.

Headline too hot to handle

2009-08-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

I often tell students that good headline writers have dirty minds. Headlines often have double meanings that their authors did not intend. The headline at right, which ran recently in Greeley's Tribune, proves my point.

"UNC prof works to get boys hot about reading," might have seemed innocuous enough to the person writing it, but readers unfamiliar with the story under the headline could easily infer a double meaning.

This point is particularly poignant in light of recent news from the University of Northern Colorado, where a theater professor was arrested and charged with unlawful sexual contact with a child and sexual exploitation of children after he was accused of videotaping young men urinating in his house. The professor is on indefinite paid suspension and is banned from campus. I have no comment on the professor's case.

One way to avoid double meanings in headlines is to make sure several editors read them before they are published.

King Soopers update

2009-08-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

The higher-ups at King Soopers must read this blog. Either that, or they hired a copy editor. The billboards visible off Sixth Avenue in Denver and Lakewood now read correctly:

The freshest produce ... every day!

You see, we can change the world.

In case you missed it, see the erroneous billboard in my earlier post.

Do you see what I see?

2009-08-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

Copy editors don't just edit stories. They are supposed to edit every bit of news that goes into the publication. This includes headlines, informational graphics and even turn lines, the instructions that tell people where to go for the rest of the story. You would not believe how often those things are WRONG. Some editors are particularly picky. When I was a sports copy editor, I used to add up the numbers in the box scores and call the Associated Press when they didn't make sense. As you might imagine, they loved hearing from me on deadline.

Another thing that copy editors are SUPPOSED to edit is the cut lines. These are the words that go under or next to the photographs -- what most people refer to as "captions." Cut lines are important because many people look at the pictures before reading the story, and many don't even read the story. That's why you have to identify people fully in cut lines.

I always tell students that they should NEVER, under any circumstances, write cut lines without viewing the photo. This tip would have helped with the photo/cut line combination at right. The photo is headlined "August 2: Nationals @ Pirates," and the cut line reads as follows:

Josh Willingham strokes an RBI double off Pirates pitcher Jesse Chavez in the eighth inning.

It's a photo from Major League Baseball's official Web site. You can clearly see that the back of the batter's shirt says "Cedeno." If you know baseball pretty well, you will see right away that the batter is wearing a Pirates uniform. So why does the cut line refer to him as "Josh Willingham," and why does it say that he is hitting off a Pirates pitcher?

A good copy editor, and a good photographer for that matter, would have looked at the photo and noticed that it wasn't Willingham. Then he or she would have gone to the Pirates Web site and checked on Cedeno. The last step would have been to check the box score, also available at the team's Web site, to find out who the pitcher was and what team he played for.

Guess what? I checked it. Took me about two minutes. It turns out that shortstop Ronny Cedeno, number 13, hit a homer on Aug. 2, off pitcher Collin Balester of the Washington Nationals. He did not have a double, but he did drive in two runs. Josh Willingham also played that day. He played left field for the Nationals, and he hit a home run, but not off Jesse Chavez. He hit a double off Chavez, who pitched 1.2 innings for the Pirates . Oops.

The moral of the story? Check everything. And if you're writing a cut line, don't forget to look at the photo.

Your billboard is wrong ... every day

2009-08-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

TO: King Soopers marketing director
FROM: The Cranky Copy Editor
DATE: Aug. 8, 2009
RE: Misspelling in your billboard

The offending billboard reads as follows:

King Soopers
The freshest produce ... everyday

You should have used "every day." Here's a hint from "The Media Writer's Handbook" by George T. Arnold: If you can substitute "each" for "every," use two words.

I hope your next billboard will be better edited. Perhaps you would like to hire one of my former students. Many are looking for jobs.

Where have all the fact-checkers gone?

2009-08-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

One of the most important jobs of a copy editor is fact checking. The New York Times must need some new copy editors. Seven errors in a story about Walter Cronkite? Uncle Walt must be rolling in his grave. Clark Hoyt, the paper's public editor, discussed the problem in this week's column.

This is really depressing to me. When I worked at the copy desk of the Indiana Daily Student, my college paper, we checked EVERY name. Does anyone do that anymore? Is fact checking "so last century"? If so, that's pretty sad. Reader comments would be appreciated.

Misplaced Hall-of-Famer

2009-07-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

As a Red Sox fan, I'm thrilled that Jim Rice is finally being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend. As an editor, I'm appalled at the headline about the story on the team's official Web site.

Click on the image at right to see the offending headline. It reads: "Years in making, Rice ready for day in sun."

What we have here is a misplaced modifier. The phrase "years in the making" is supposed to modify Rice's "big day." But modifiers are supposed to appear next to the words they modify. This means that readers might incorrectly infer that the phrase is modifying Rice himself. A better headline would be "After 15-year wait, Rice ready for day in sun."

For more on misplaced modifiers, visit one of my favorite blogs, Grammar Monkeys, at the Wichita Eagle.

And in case you were wondering, longtime left fielder and Red Sox captain Rice is being enshrined with base stealer extraordinaire Rickey Henderson and 1942 MVP Joe Gordon. The ceremony is set for 1:30 p.m. Eastern time Sunday.

Goodbye to a legend

2009-07-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

I came of age after Walter Cronkite had already retired as anchor of the evening news, but I still appreciate what he did. You can view his greatest moments and see for yourself.

I really enjoyed the appreciation in today's New York Times by Verlyn Klinkenborg. Here's my favorite part:

Some deaths end only a life. Some end a generation. Walter Cronkite’s death ends something larger and more profound. He stood for a world, a century, that no longer exists. His death is like losing the last veteran of a world-changing war, one of those men who saw too much but was never embittered by it. Walter Cronkite’s gift was to talk to us about what he saw, and we are very lucky to have been able to listen.

Unfortunate, but all too true.

Thanks, Uncle Walter, for all you gave journalism.

Which is it?

2009-07-07T15:09:00.001-07:00

I enjoyed a recent scathing book review in The New York Times. Janet Maslin really took it to Chris Anderson, author of "Free: The Future of a Radical Price," and Ellen Ruppel Shell, author of "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture."

But Maslin made an error that made my crankiness rear its ugly head. The reviewer chided both authors because they referred to the same story but told it in different ways. I kept waiting for Maslin to tell readers which retelling was correct. She didn't. In the journalism business, that's called a "hole" -- a question that should have been answered but wasn't. I also like to refer to it with the technical term "bad reporting."

The case in point involves a research study by Dan Ariely. According to Maslin, the books she reviewed had the story as follows:

According to “Cheap” he offered his subjects a choice between the 1-cent Kiss and a 26-cent Ferrero Rocher hazelnut. At those prices the test subjects were divided 40 percent to 40 percent, with 20 percent opting for neither. Then the prices came down by one penny each, and 90 percent of the subjects took the free chocolate. Only 10 percent chose the higher-priced brand.

And here's what Maslin says about "Free":

In its “Free” version the non-Kiss candy is a Lindt truffle initially priced at 15 cents while the Kiss cost a penny; 73 percent of subjects chose the truffle and 27 percent picked the Kiss, with nobody abstaining. Then the prices were lowered by 1 cent each, and 69 percent of the subjects chose the free Kiss.

So which story is correct? Well, after about five minutes of Google searching, I found out. The study, written by Kristina Shampanier and Nina Mazar, as well as Ariely, described TWO experiements. The first involved a Lindt truffle, as Anderson says, but he got the price wrong. It was originally 14 cents, not 15. The second involved a Ferrero Rocher, just as Shell said. And she got the prices right.

Good copy editors either send stories with holes back to the authors for fixing or fill the holes on their own. Today's lesson: Don't leave holes in stories. If you leave readers guessing after reading a story, they might not come back next time.

Great language blog

2009-06-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

Found a great new language blog, Grammar Monkeys. Well, it's new to me. Don't know how "new" it is. It's by the Wichita Eagle's copy editors. Today's entry is about noun/pronoun agreement, which almost all my students need to work on.

The perils of proofreading while driving

2009-06-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

Just moved into a lovely neighborhood with an unfortunately ugly sign. We have a beautiful stream, hundreds of trees and lots of grass. We also have a missing apostrophe and an unclear sentence. The Volkswagen Beetle-sized sign warns drivers not to park on the road that runs through the neighborhood. It ends with the following sentence:

Violators will be towed at owners expense.

I'm not sure what the sign's author means by "violators." To me, this means that the people violating the rule will be towed. Ouch! That sounds rather unpleasant and should act as quite a deterrent. But that can't be what the author means. Not unless the owners of this place are prone to violence. More likely, they're prone to typos. We're talking about the cars being towed. So why say "violators"? Why not say "violators' vehicles"? It has a nice ring to it, don't you think? I guess the author was in a hurry and had no time to hire a proofreader.

On to the missing apostrophe.

"Owners" is the plural form of "owner." It means more than one owner. So if someone parks in the wrong place, violators will be towed.

But who will pay for said towing? I'm not sure. I think it should be "owners' expense." The "s" followed by the apostrophe indicates possession by several owners. I did not use "owner's," which is singular, because "violators" implies that more than one owner is paying. One violator usually means one owner. Although one car could be owned by two or more people, one person probably does not own every car illegally parked on a road. I'm sure it could happen, but I don't anticipate it.

Apostrophes not only indicate possession, they also let readers know when a letter or letters have been removed. For instance, the apostrophe in "doesn't" replaces an "o." Don't use apostrophes to indicate plurals. As with any punctuation mark, when you see yourself using one, take a moment and ask yourself why. If you don't know, check your trusty grammar/punctuation guide. Here are a few good ones:

Media Writer's Handbook: A Guide to Common Editing and Writing Problems, by George T. Arnold. The book includes chapters on the basics and loads of writing tips.
Associated Press Stylebook, edited by Darrell Christian, Sally Jacobsen and David Minthorn. Includes a 41-page punctuation guide.
Working with Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors, by Brian S. Brooks, James L. Pinson and Jean Gaddy Wilson. Includes chapters on the basics, style, mechanics and writing.

You could call it that

2009-06-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

Just found a great miscue in The New York Times. The story is about college basketball player Luke Harangody, who decided to return to Notre Dame for another year.

My paper copy had the following sentence:

That meant Harangody could work out for teams, attend the daft combine and receive feedback from N.B.A. executives on his draft status without forfeiting his N.C.A.A. eligibility.

I've never been to the draft combine, but I suppose it could be daft. Must I remind people that this is yet another error that was caused by checking spelling and not proofreading?

Words, words, words

2009-06-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

Interesting column on words in today's New York Times.

It's not the number of words, it's the way we use them.

Another reason to learn punctuation

2009-06-04T13:15:00.001-07:00

This punctuation error was worth about $1 million. Actually, it was worth $200, but that's a lot of money for a punctuation mark.

Either she was really nervous or she never took my class. Probably both.

For the record: A colon introduces things. A period is a stop. A comma is a pause.

Now annoying: Flight stupid from Denver

2009-05-25T18:45:00.001-07:00

Took mom to the airport today. Because she has a bad back, she was told she had the opportunity to "pre-board" the plane. When I heard that, I thought I might keel over and require the use of her wheelchair.

Attention all airport employees, especially those with access to microphones: "Pre-board" is not a word. The act of boarding is still "boarding," whenever it takes place.

If you board late, is that "post-boarding"? Doesn't make any sense, does it? It's the same with "pre-board." That's why the use of "pre-board" should be banned. Instead, people should be allowed to board early. Is that so difficult to say?

I hope everyone out there will inform airline personnel whenever they hear this offending term. Thanks.

Finally!

2009-05-08T14:06:00.001-07:00

I hate to use exclamation points. To say they are overused is an understatement. It's easy to stick an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, but that doesn't make the sentence exciting. If the words are exciting, there's no need for a punctuation mark.

But this is one time when an exclamation point is called for. I just finished putting the 410 Forum site online. Putting together a Web site is no easy task. But if you're hoping to be a journalist, it's something you have to understand and experience. I hope by completing this project, I can do a better job teaching my students about what they'll be doing in the real world.

The Forum is a way for students in my Advanced News and Feature Writing class to learn a little about online publishing and get their work published on the Web.

The site was designed by Tom Trelogan, a philosophy professor by day and our college webmaster by night. Thanks, Tom, the site looks great! Thanks also to Nick Eastham, an instructional designer with the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. Tom and Nick answered many, many questions for me.

Thanks especially to my JMC410 students, who did a wonderful job this semester. I am so impressed with all of you! I really learned a lot this semester, and I hope you did, too.

Worth reading

2009-04-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

I haven't been reading William Safire's On Language column as often as I used to. His stuff just isn't as interesting to me as it used to be. But I'm glad I got past the lead of today's piece, in which the New York Times language guru discusses some interesting new books on language.

I'm most intrigued by two of the titles. The first is Carol Fisher Saller's "The Subversive Copy Editor," of which Safire writes:

It’s an insider’s book to cure writers who can’t stand “damnable nitpicking” while shoring up editors with “it’s not the author’s right to offend or confuse the reader, defy the rules of standard English, fail to identify sources or lower the standards of your institution.”

I don't think I've ever met a "damnable nitpicker" myself. Myself? Oh, yeah, myself.

The second book I'm interested in is "100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces," by the editors of American Heritage Dictionaries. Some of the words they discuss, according to Safire, are "almond" (don't pronounce the "L") and "often" (leave out the "T).

I hope they take on "height." I cannot stand to hear it mispronounced as "heighth." Do you say "weighth"? No. Why not? Because neither "height" nor "weight" includes a -th. You do say "depth" and "width. (Note the -th in each.)

I guess that's enough nitpicking for today.

What did they learn?

2009-04-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

My Advanced News and Feature Writing class has gone really well. The class, which is the capstone for news-editorial students, will soon publish its very own news Web site, the 410 Forum. As part of their final project, I asked students to blog about what they learned in the JMC major. And guess what? They learned a lot. They also offered some advice for those starting the program. Check the posts out on the right-hand menu, just below my profile.

Photo by Trent Gillespie.

A style all its own

2009-04-19T16:03:00.001-07:00

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt discusses his paper's style manual in this week's column.

Here's what I think:

I still can't understand why the Times uses courtesy titles in every section but sports. And why on Earth do they continue to refer to Queen Elizabeth II as Queen Elizabeth 2nd? And while we're at it, when will the Times begin using modular design? Oh right, that's so 20th century. Better to figure out how to make money on the Web.

I'll take a slice

2009-04-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

Thank the sports gods, baseball season is here at last, and with it comes the first of many editing errors, I'm sure. The New York Mets opened their new ballpark to much fanfare. On Monday night, Hall-of-Famer Tom Seaver threw the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Piazza, who should be in the Hall in a few years.

A brief story in The New York Times referred to the big-hitting catcher as "Pizza" in the third paragraph. The error has been cleaned up on the Web site, but it made it into my national edition Tuesday morning. I guess that's an easy one to misplay. The spell-checker won't catch it. That's why I continue to remind my students that spell-checking is NOT editing.

One at a time, please

2009-04-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

I saw some really stinky mistakes today while perusing a certain sporting goods store, which shall remain nameless because I have no idea what it was called.

The following line appeared on a bunch of TOILET SEATS that were emblazoned with the colors and numbers of some NASCAR drivers:

Drivers seat

And saw the following on a couple of seats that sported NFL colors and logos:

Coaches seat

I don't think those things are made for more than one person to use at once. The presentation was advertising plural drivers and plural coaches. What I mean -- for you non-grammar geeks out there -- is that the seats literally advertised that they were made for more than one driver and more than one coach.

What they should have been advertising was the singular possessive format -- that the seat belonged to one driver or one coach. The proper usage would be the following:

Driver's seat

Coach's seat

Of course, if drivers and coaches want to go two at a time, that's fine with me. I'm just glad they didn't have any in my team's colors. That would have been really embarrassing.

Now, I'm not going to get all riled about why in the world somebody would want to advertise his or her favorite team on a toilet seat. Seems to me you'd want the other team's logo for that. But that's a conversation for another blog.

Students on the Web

2009-04-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

The Advanced News & Feature Writing class is the capstone class for journalism students with an emphasis in news-editorial -- what we used to call "print journalism." The emphasis is really about learning how to report, write and present news that's factual and easy to read.

Every year my students write great stories, but most don't get published. So this year, we've decided to create a class Web site. With the help of our college webmaster, Tom Trelogan, the site should be up and running soon. This will give students a chance to showcase their work to prospective employers.

Blogs are another way for students to show off their talents. My students have created blogs about the beats they're covering. It's a way for them to reflect on what they're doing in the class. You can do something well but not take the time to figure out why and how. This project will force students to ask themselves some important questions about what they're learning and what they can improve on. And it's a great way to practice writing for the Web.

We've got an interesting mix of beats. Mindy Day is covering the small town of Hudson. Desiree' Beckett and Trent Gillespie are tackling religion. Dan Mauro and Drew McConnell are two of the many students examining the arts. We've also got a few students covering sports. Paige Mackenzie writes about snowboarding, and Rebecca Skeim covers lacrosse. And for something that truly says "Northern Colorado," check out Kelli Osgood's blog on the cattle industry.

Check out all the blogs on the menu at right titled "Student Blogs."

Editor makes prize from mistakes

2009-03-24T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just heard this funny bit from StoryCorps, a nonprofit project that collects stories told by ordinary people. And, in case you copy editors were wondering, the name is indeed one word with a capital "C."

In this story, a retired Miami News editor explains what happened when a pre-printed section turned out to contain several factual errors. He also provides some advice for would-be journalists.

E&P does a big, bad boo-boo

2009-03-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

(T)wat the? Just got this from a journalist friend. Hope they correct it soon, or they'll turn off a lot of people, including some Tweeters!

Below is copy I copied and pasted directly from the E&P Pub, which is a site related to Editor and Publisher, the biggest journalist mag out there.

Now They Tell Us
We just started tweeting with all the other twats, and now we see this new video...

Update: They just changed it to "twits." I guess that's better.

March 23, 2009

Now They Tell Us

We just started tweeting with all the other twits, and now we see this new video..

And then there's this, which shows Stephen Colbert on the Today show.

Crank wins award

2009-03-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

The following lead is from a story in today's Mirror, UNC's student newspaper, written by my former student, Eric Heinz.

Known for her grueling, but rewarding, journalism classes, Lynn Klyde-Silverstein, an assistant professor for UNC's Journalism and Mass Communications program, was recently awarded Educator of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists' Colorado Chapter.

What kind of system allows someone like me to win an award like this? Have to stay cranky, just to keep up the old reputation.

Some happy news for a change

2009-02-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

Who says the newspaper industry is dying? The University of Northern Colorado's campus paper, The Mirror, is celebrating its 90th birthday this weekend. Congratulations, Mirror!

Today's paper includes a history of the publication written by news editor Joshua Espinoza. Considering what's been happening with the news industry lately, I think these words are important to remember:

... the content and aesthetics of The Mirror have evolved and adapted with the times. The writing style has changed; the layout has changed; and the location has changed. But what has stayed consistent for the past nine decades is The Mirror's mission to inform, educate and entertain the community members University of Northern Colorado.

Later, Espinoza reminds us how important newspapers can be:

Having been an essential part of campus life since 1919, the publication has served as a barometer of student opinion on everything from routine occurrences like presidential elections and local politics, to the most memorable events in recent American history - including the Great Depression, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Act, the Columbine shootings and Sept. 11. The students of UNC have been able to view - as if through a metaphorical mirror - the ways in which these national milestones have personally affected them, for better or worse, through the peer-written commentary of The Mirror.

Thanks Josh, for reminding me why I love newspapers. And thanks to the Mirror staff members, past and present, for keeping the UNC community informed and entertained for 90 years.

Say it ain't so

2009-02-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

Sad to say, Denver's first newspaper -- and the state's oldest business -- published its last edition today. Today's issue is a keeper, though. Full of great stories about and from the publication's storied past, as well as all of today's news. The front page features a goodbye to readers, framed by the first front page of the first edition, published April 23, 1859.

Just saw the photo on the Rocky's home page, and it's an empty newsroom. Makes me feel a little sick.

Here's an excerpt from the front-page goodbye:

To have reached this day, the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News, just 55 days shy of its 150th birthday is painful. We will scatter. And all that will be left are the stories we have told, captured on microfilm or in digital archives, devices unimaginable in those first days. But what was present in the paper then and has remained to this day is a belief in this community and the people who make it what it has become and what it will be. We part in sorrow because we know so much lies ahead that will be worth telling, and we will not be there to do so.

Rest in peace, Rocky. May your spirit live on in journalists for generations to come.

Whom, I?

2009-02-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

Many people have trouble figuring out whether it's proper to use "I" or "me" in certain grammatical situations. And according to an op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times, even presidents make the mistake of using "I" when they should be using "me." One reason the authors, Patricia T. O'Connor and Stewart Kellerman, offer for this error is what they call "hypercorrection:"

Then, why do so many scofflaws keep using “I” instead of “me”? Perhaps it’s because they were scolded as children for saying things like “Me want candy” instead of “I want candy,” so they began to think “I” was somehow more socially acceptable. Or maybe it’s because they were admonished against “it’s me.” Anybody who’s had “it is I” drummed into his head is likely to avoid “me” on principle, even when it’s right.

Another mistake along the same lines occurs when people write "whom" instead of "who." I think writers do this because they think using "whom" makes one appear more learned. Like when people use big words that they don't understand, just to impress the readers. Not that my students ever do that.

I don't mind it when I hear these mistakes in spoken language. We simply don't have enough time to edit ourselves when we talk. It's when you make mistakes like these in writing that brings out the crank in cranky editors like me. I'm sure many will disagree. I have a friend who is an English professor, and she cannot stand to hear "can I" when "may I" is preferred. I can take it or leave it. Does that mean someone will come along and take away my "grammar junkie" card?

Now don't get me wrong. I can't stand to hear people say things like "I seen that" and "It don't make no difference to me." Double-negatives also give me the willies. One has to draw the line somewhere.

What makes you cranky?

With a name like 'craigslist,' what do you expect?

2009-02-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

Someone in my house has been printing out ads from craigslist. Either she' s looking to move, or she wants me to edit the ads. I hope it's the latter. Three of the four ads contained misspellings. I have a special prize for the author of the first ad, who threw in a second mistake for free.

"Heat included in Rent/Move in Speicial/ Avalible now..."

"OAKBROOK APARTMENTS: Unfirnished..."

"$500 Funished Studio Apartment ..."

I hope you're as appalled as I am.

So please, dear readers, if you're going to post something on the Internet, proofread it for goodness sake. And if you're not a born editor, ask a friend -- or an editing teacher -- to proof it for you.

Worth reading

2009-02-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

I just finished "Black and White and Dead all Over" by John Darnton. What a read! It's a mystery that starts with the murder of one of the assistant managing editors at what appears to be a thinly veiled reference to The New York Times. What I love about this book are the details the author includes about how newsrooms used to be, and the longing the old timers seem to have for the "good old days." I remember hearing about those days at the Connecticut Post.
Cigarette butts hanging off desks, booze bottles stuffed inside drawers, reporters returning to the newsroom to file stories after their three-martini lunches. (No, wait, my bad. That last one happened several times when I worked there.)

This book has it all for old timers: the composing room, the pneumatic tubes, the typewriters. And can you believe the AME is found with an editor's spike rammed into his chest? If you know what an editor's spike is, you will love this book. If not, you might learn something.

One of the funniest tidbits Darnton uses is the fact that several of the "dinosaurs" -- journalists who've been there since the old days -- keep yellowed copies of what is considered the worst lead ever written at the paper. When work is slow, one of them will open a drawer and take it out and read it. Guffaws follow. Reminds me of the editor who, during a lull, used to yell across the newsroom, "Nixon just died!" At least he never did it on my deadline. Then there was the editor who used a line gauge (a fancy name for an editor's ruler) to open his soda can. (Hey, it makes sense. He never cut himself.) And then there was the story about the reporter who covered the Earthquake World Series in 1989. When the editor finally heard from said reporter after hours of wondering his fate, he asked for the story before asking how he was. How can you miss things like that?

What's next? Thespacebetweenwords?

2009-02-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

Government officials in Birmingham, England, have voted to ban apostrophes in road signs. According to an Associated Press story, the officials spent so much time during meetings trying to figure out which place names needed apostrophes, they couldn't get anything else done.

I love the wordplay used by the AP writer, Meera Silva:

LONDON – On the streets of Birmingham, the queen's English is now the queens English.
England's second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they're confusing and old-fashioned.

But some purists are downright possessive about the punctuation mark.

I wouldn't say I'm possessive. Fanatical, maybe. But not possessive.

'Your' an idiot

2009-01-29T08:13:00.000-08:00

Stupid people should not be allowed to create bumper stickers. I was driving to work this morning and saw the following:

If your going to
ride my ass
pull my hair

I'm going to market my own sticker, but this one will be for smart people:

If you're going to
put something idiotic on your automobile,
at least use proper punctuation.

I guess I'll have to edit it down to fit. Any suggestions?

Which America do you mean?

2009-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

I love the crossword puzzle in The New York Times. And, being a news geek, I love it even more when the puzzle includes themes on current events.

The last three weeks have included two Sunday puzzles dedicated to the election of Barack Obama. The first was a little tough. The theme was states that voted for Obama. The states' postal abbreviations (not AP style abbreviations) were included in circles throughout the puzzle. Great idea. Then on Inauguration Day, the puzzle focused on Obama himself, including references to "The Audacity of Hope," the U.S. Senate and Vice President Joe Biden.

But Tuesday's puzzle also had what I consider to be a major editing mistake. I can't remember the exact clue, but it was something like "Obama's title beginning Jan. 20, 2009." The answer was "President of America." Last I heard, the name of our country was the United States of America. "America" refers to the continents of North and South America. Obama is not the president of North and South America. People who live in countries like Canada, Mexico, Peru, Honduras and Greenland take offense to this type of thing. (Yes, Virginia, Greenland is part of North America.) And I find don't like it, either, thank you very much.

If we're going to take back our place in the world, let's start with being more sensitive about things like this.

I realize that like headlines, crossword puzzle answers must fit, but that's why they're so demanding to compose. If the writer of the puzzle couldn't find a good answer that fit, he or she should have rephrased the question.