"News" Journalists? Not!

Maybe there's now a required number of words in journalists' stories, or maybe there are just too many journalists trying to cover the same event.

Whatever it is--and maybe it's just a sign of my age and its corresponding intolerance for grammatical foibles--print news stories today drive me  I N S A N E.  And I won't even begin to complain about all the spelling errors in print news today!!

There are two things that are uppermost in my mind which make me wonder "do the writers ever read their material before it's published?"

It appears they do not.

•  Clarity.  Take this lead-in to the story:  "Deceased man and woman found in B.C. home were known to each other:  RCMP"  Duh!  Ya think?  From global news.ca here.  So what's my beef with the sentence?  My gut feeling was it's not uncommon for a man and woman--in a home--to be known to each other, and that total strangers found inside a home would likely be a bit of a rarity, ya think?  I realize there are probably more divorces than marriages these days, but chances are pretty darn good that a man and a woman inside a home are either married, or living common-law, or sharing utilities costs, etc.  In other words, they know one another!  Plus this clue from the story:  "Neighbours told Kamloops television news station CFJC they had not seen the couple who live in the home in a few days."  Ahem!  Neighbours have seen "the couple" previously because they live there, i.e. together!

• While I'm at it, the second drives-me-insane item is likely thanks to the legal profession.  How many times have you read a story and learned...what?  that "...the person is alleged to have...", "the individual allegedly pointed a firearm ...", "he is alleged to have thrown the first punch."  Yes, we realize that "breaking news" invariably is issued so quickly (to be...a...news worthy) that chances are very good proof is not yet available.  It's not court, after all, it's a news story. 

And I won't miss this opportunity to state my THIRD reason why print journalists drive me insane: 

•  The usage of its and it's:  

Correct:  The beast reared its ugly head.  (possessive)

Incorrect:  The plot didn't match it's storyline.  (contraction, short for it is).

To be (somewhat) fair to CHBC print news, I find Castanet online news is absolutely disgraceful.  One can find at least one error in almost every print story on Castanet online.  Yup!   They often spell a person's name correctly once, and then incorrectly in the same news story!  And other stuff at Castanet, like this one today:

 "As you know low-income people, low-income families and

 homeless people everybody deserves a gift and a little extra

 help at Christmas time, so we really try to do that for them."

 Castanet story

The writer probably initially wanted to state:  "Everybody deserves a gift..." but then edited the sentence to include "low-income people, low-income families (are they not covered in people?!?) and homeless people..." without removing the word everybody. 

Deadlines?  

In a hurry?

Take a moment and read your document BEFORE you publish it.

Some other goof-ups are listed here.
I didn't even read the list...in case I found yet another blatant goof!


OK...there...I feel better having gotten that off my chest.
Drove me crazy...some days it's a short trip.

Not its a short trip!