Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Ruh Roh! One R Too Many


The Maven is often asked "why do you worry so much about typos and other trivials that the media publish?"

Two answers easily come to mind. 

One is that the Maven is a cold and bitter man, left behind by an industry he once loved. One who finds nits to pick and axes to grind because he is no longer an influential member of the media. 

The other, and more honest answer is that the media loves to criticize and find fault, yet rarely, if ever acknowledge their own shortcomings, ineptitude and/or ignorance. 

It wasn't long ago that gray-haired grade school English teachers would wave around a copy of the local daily newspaper and admonish their students to "write like this. If it's in this newspaper, you know it's correct". That, was a while ago. Now, media, thanks to large corporate, profit-driven organizations must squeeze every penny of profit and will spare no effort in cutting corners and cheapening their product in order to make the shareholders happy. Couple that with a generation of kids writing news on iPads while sipping $6 coffee, living in their parent's basements who can't seem to be bothered with details of who, what, where, when and how....and you get results like this. 

And that, kids, brings us to today's example of laziness and lack of quality control. It is clear that no one at WANE TV reads their final product. 



Really? Reach and every day? Ruh roh is right. The likelihood of those words rolling off Chief Lahey's tongue and few and far between....unless, of course, you reside in the WANE TV news room. 

2 comments:

  1. FWMM:
    I've been down that "company left ME" street myself...and yes, I was bitter for a long time.
    Now, it's THEIR loss and MY again.
    I heartily agree with both of your reasons for why you do what you do (and quite well).
    As for the story? Ruh-Roh indeed...lol.
    Stay safe out there.

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