As someone who studied journalism in college and worked as a copy editor for many years, I have long had doubts about the wisdom of allowing so–called "citizen journalists" to write articles and post them directly to the internet — completely bypassing that tedious and old–fashioned phase wherein facts are checked, along with spelling, punctuation and grammar, by copy editors.
Sure, double–checking things takes time. It might even prevent a publication or a website from "scooping" another one. But, at the same time, when an extra set of eyeballs looks over an article, mistakes can be caught (and corrected), mistakes that could cause considerable embarrassment for the author and the publication/website.
No one is perfect, of course, and the presence of a copy desk does not guarantee that every mistake will be caught. But sometimes, those eyeballs can catch mistakes that, if permitted to be published, could lead to expensive litigation.
Unfortunately, copy desks have been rendered expendable in today's economy — as John McIntyre, the recently laid–off head of the copy desk for the Baltimore Sun and author of one of my favorite blogs, You Don't Say, could tell you.
Many newspapers seem to be cutting back on those who spend long, often thankless hours reading other people's writing and doing the things those writers are now expected to do — but often do not seem inclined to do unless someone holds a gun to their heads.
And many websites do not seem to care enough about the quality of the articles that appear on them to maintain even a modest copy desk.
Now, I'm a writer. And I know that writers don't particularly like to have someone going through their work with a fine tooth comb.
But with no copy editors — or, at best, a few overworked and underpaid copy editors on staff — mistakes are just allowed to be published or posted, no questions asked. To me, that seems like a recipe for chaos.
In recent months, I have lamented the lack of accountability in today's media. Today, I came across an example of something that a good copy editor might have caught before it was posted online.
It is an item from the CNN.com website that was following up on something that I wrote about during the weekend.
It was Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's statement in a speech to fellow Republicans that he believed Barack Obama might be headed for the same fate as Jimmy Carter.
In the followup, CNN.com's Alexander Mooney wrote that Crist was standing by his statements. Fine. That is certainly his right. Then Mooney wrote, "Carter won just six states in 1980 — the fewest by a major–party presidential candidate since 1964."
OK, Carter did carry only six states in 1980. That part was true. But if anyone had bothered to check the assertion that it was "the fewest by a major–party presidential candidate since 1964," a quick glance at an almanac would have confirmed that the statement was false.
It was actually the fewest states carried by a major–party presidential candidate since 1972, when Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern carried only the state of Massachusetts.
That is a good example of a factual error that could have been caught — indeed, should have been caught — but was not caught.
Of course, saying Carter's showing in the 1980 election was the worst by a major–party nominee in 16 years is more sensational than saying it was the worst performance in eight years (even though it is true). I wasn't in CNN's newsroom so I don't know if someone did catch it and decided to let it slide.
But it wasn't the focus of the story. It wasn't mentioned in the headline. So I can only assume that no one caught it.
I actually thought about mentioning it in a comment, but CNN.com had closed comments on that article. There were already 219 comments posted, so I started to read through them to see if anyone had mentioned this mistake. But I gave up after scanning a few dozen. The readers' comments were largely concerned with name–calling.
I hope someone brought it to CNN's attention, but I doubt it. Last time I checked, it was still there.
Facts, as John Adams wrote, are stubborn things. Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion — but not his/her own set of facts.
Copy desks are valuable in other ways, too. They catch misspellings. If you spend much time online, you may have noticed that spelling is less and less important to many people, but it is still important to me, and I would like to think it is still important to others as well.
I presume that others have at least a passing interest in maintaining spelling standards. I have often heard people preaching the virtues of computer spell checkers, but few people seem to use them.
One spelling mistake I ran across today, ironically, appeared at a blog called Regret the Error.
The blog, which is written by a freelance journalist named Craig Silverman, focuses on mistakes that appear in the media. The mistake that I spotted was in a headline on an item about Brooke Shields' recent appearance on NBC's Today. The headline tranposed the i and the e in her name.
I did point out that mistake in a comment, and a correction was made. But you can see the original headline in the screen capture that is attached to this post.
Sometimes copy editors can raise questions about the wisdom of running certain pieces, like one I saw today at The Hinterland Gazette, a site that advertises itself as "a daily dose of commentary on social and political issues from an African American centrist."
The item to which I refer suggested that the daughters of the Spanish prime minister and his wife, who posed for a photograph with Barack and Michelle Obama, were "secret Goths," based on their attire.
The only evidence for such an assertion was a photograph in which everyone — except Mrs. Obama — was dressed in black.
No one would ever mistake me for a fashion model, but I don't think commentary on teenage girls' clothing qualifies as a legitimate "social" issue.
Do you?
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