They Just Don't Care

The Maven takes a lot of crap about being a crotchety nit-picker. But when garbage news copy like this is published on the web and read on the air, I make no excuses. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.

While I could probably find a few more issues with this copy, I stopped at 11...no use in piling on, right?

From what I can gather from the article, there were a couple of shootings early this morning that left one person dead and a couple more injured.

The complete (if you want to call it that) article can be found, errors and all, here:

http://wowo.com/ArticleDisplay/tabid/74/ArticleId/9478/Early-Morning-Shootings-Leave-2-in-Hospital-1-Dead.aspx

Follow along with me:

#1: It's an update, ok, fine. Then you tell me, again, it's an update. Sloppy. The second "Updated" is redundant.
#2: This copy appears to be written for the ear, but I'm looking at it with my eyes. And once again, you infer that it's an update. Stop updating me and tell me the story......
#3: "out at the Eden Green....." Hello, Kayla Blakeslee! This one has your fingerprints all over it. The Eden Green complex sits dead (sorry about the pun) in the center of the city of Fort Wayne. "Out at...." would refer to an area outside of the city, or, at the least, far removed from the downtown area. No one on the WOWO news staff is from Fort Wayne, so, it makes sense that you are all confused.
#4: This sentence is so flatulently verbose, it should be removed. Police always welcome information from the public, so the words "police are now asking...." are unnecessary.

#5: "shooting erupted...". No, volcanoes erupt, shootings "happen". And for God's sake don't say "shots rang out".
#6: "the first one..." The word "one" is redundant and in unnecessary to tell the story.
#7: "half past two...". The only person in the world that uses the phase "half past two" is your grandmother, and even she is embarrassed by your writing. What's wrong with two thirty?
#8: "in the second shooting..." Try "other" shooting. You have described one, this is the other.
#9: The word "intersection" is misspelled twice, in two different ways. "intersecton" and "inersection". Spell check would have nailed this. Why do you have such little regard for your audience?
#10: "two shootings..." yes, mentioned that. It's redundant, again.
#11: Verbose and painful to read.

The Maven wonders when English and Grammar became optional courses in high school and college.