And the next fist fight at WashPost will be...

[JayFarrar]

Yikes, Tom Boswell versus Andrew Alexander, the Post's ombud.
Alexander notes that print readers were less than pleased with Boswell's piece from the World Series that contained not one, not two but "contained at least 20 typos, grammatical errors or misspellings."

Double yikes. The headline on Alexander's piece is, "Deadline pressure yields a "mess" of a World Series column"

Triple yikes.

- Extra rest for a pitcher “may be on crucial value” instead of “may be of crucial value.”

- “...the Yankees had reverse the tide” instead of “reversed the tide.”

- “...tactics that may bare on the rest of the sears” instead of “bear on the rest of the series.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-blog/2009/11/deadline_pressure_yields_a_mes.html?wprss=ombudsman-blog

 

[dooley_womack1]

Oh god. Something that bad, the desk has to take a bullet, too.

 

[YGBFKM]

Oh god. Something that bad, the desk has to take a bullet, too.

Maybe the Post is working smarter like a lot of papers by eliminating copy editors.

 

[JackReacher]

Not surprising. At all. Especially to anyone who reads Boswell on a regular basis.

It's even worse during his weekly online chats. Dude can't get through two sentences without at least three or four typos. It's so bad, it's embarrassing.

 

[forever_town]

Wow. Sounds like the WaPo got rid of a few miracle workers in their last round of cuts.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Errors in an online chat are on the writer. Errors in a PRINT column are a team ****up. If there aren't enough copy editors to do the job, the person responsible for the problem is publisher Donald Graham -- not that I'd expect any ombudsman to point that out.

 

[SEeditor]

Just goes to show how important copy editors are.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

SE, you couldn't be more correct. The first people I wanted to thank for the memories when I left the Herald were the deskers. God, how often they saved my ass.
At my current job, I am my own copy editor. It's terrifying.

 

[Harry Doyle]

Errors in an online chat are on the writer. Errors in a PRINT column are a team ****up. If there aren't enough copy editors to do the job, the person responsible for the problem is publisher Donald Graham -- not that I'd expect any ombudsman to point that out.

Since accuracy is the point of this thread: The publisher of The Washington Post is Katharine Weymouth. Her uncle, Don Graham, is board chair for the company.

As for the errors. Boz definitely is of the old school, in terms of expecting the desk to catch everything and maintain his pristine image. Fact is, these World Series games didn't end until nearly midnight and the old hand was up against an impossible deadline. At that point, it's basically the slot editor giving it a quick read and then slapped on the page.

The errors, of course, aren't defensible. Boz has been around long enough that he should know better than to be sloppy. That's on him. But we're being naive, and negligent, if we ignore the fact that tighter-than-ever deadlines severely hack into the editing time on gamers, and result in more errors like these.

That said, I think very few out there match Boz for his baseball gravitas and chops. Great writer who I hope sticks around for at least another decade or so.

 

[Moderator1]

Sounds like they're trying to do too much in the time they have. Newspaper credibility continues to take hits. Readers don't want to hear about your deadlines being the reason for sloppiness. Figure out how much you can do with the time you have and do that.

I had writers who were clean and punctual. You could give them a little more time. I had writers who tended to go too long and some who had typo issues. They didn't get as much time. On a night when there were 10 live things, everybody got a little less time. On a night when there were only 1-2 live things, everybody got a little more time.

You put out a sloppy product, it's on everybody.

Clean Boswell up, throw him on the Web. Period.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Everyone is right. It's a system failure. Like any system, there are ways to cope. They're not ideal, but they exist.

 

[Harry Doyle]

Sounds like they're trying to do too much in the time they have. Newspaper credibility continues to take hits. Readers don't want to hear about your deadlines being the reason for sloppiness. Figure out how much you can do with the time you have and do that.

I had writers who were clean and punctual. You could give them a little more time. I had writers who tended to go too long and some who had typo issues. They didn't get as much time. On a night when there were 10 live things, everybody got a little less time. On a night when there were only 1-2 live things, everybody got a little more time.

You put out a sloppy product, it's on everybody.

Clean Boswell up, throw him on the Web. Period.

All good points. The question will always center around credibility. But does it take a bigger hit if your readers don't have a column at all on the World Series, or if the column is there, brilliant, but sloppy.

I see arguments both ways. But after reading your thoughts Moddy, I tend to think holding the column and directing readers to the Web is smartest. At least then your standards can't be questioned. However, this practice will eventually lead to the question of why bother even having a columnist at games and write night-of pieces if they won't make print.

I think it's tough to fault the Post for trying to do too much. They're just trying to give readers content that they've come accustomed to having. They're already not making the first two editions, they're not getting gamers from the Central time zone. The value of the daily sports page is slowly evaporating, and the Post is just trying to hang on. It's like Elton John touring and singing Rocket Man, even though he has to drop his voice an octave at the parts he used to sing in a falsetto voice.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

At this point, it's triage. Decide what you CAN do in print and do it. Don't try and middle it. Let Boz's first edition column stand and move on. If you want a clean deadline column, send a clean deadline columnist. Trying to pretend it's 1987 doesn't work for the paper or the readers.

 

[Moderator1]

Harry, as an old and old-time newspaper guy, the thought of saying "hey it is on the Web" makes me gag. A reflex.
But, yeah, in these circumstances that's the best thing, I think. People don't care about brilliance if it is sloppy brilliance (and count me in the camp of those who like reading Boswell).

To our readers: Last night's game ended too late for all the copy to make the print edition. Please check www.washingtonpost.com to read Thomas Boswell's take on the game as well as (whatever)

Ugh. If anyone has a better solution, I'm game. I just don't see one anymore. I guess we should just be glad the Web is there.

Sad fact of life. We can't do as much as we used to do - but we still have to make damn sure what we do is done right.

 

[Shaggy]

Tight deadline or not, don't writers do a quick read-through of their work before they send it? I'm talking a 90-second skimming. Unless you're an idiot (which I know Boswell is not), a quick skim would've caught at least 30 percent of those typos.

I edit a couple of part-timers with the old "the desk will fix it" mantra, and I want to punch them in the face. Really ****ing hard.

A piece of writing reaching a million people needs to have many editors. The first one is the writer himself.

 

[doggieseatdoggies]

Just goes to show how important copy editors are.

I just ran this by our advertising people and they were perplexed. "What do you mean? Like, more important than the custodians?" they ask.

 

[SixToe]

"... tactics that may bare on the rest of the sears”

Shouldn't anyone from a recent college grad to a grizzled veteran be able to write a sentence without errors like this?

I agree the system failed and bad deadlines or the more-with-less mentality has contributed to more errors. But "bare" for "bear" and "sears" for "series" shouldn't have been written to begin with.

 

[Drip]

It's a multi-grain FUBAR. No one is exempt from taking the bullet.

 

[FreddiePatek]

Relaying in spill chick proofed too bee I bud moves

 

[Mizzougrad96]

During one of my internships I worked as a copy editor and I was stunned at the number of spelling errors and grammatical errors the lead columnist (an extremely well-known and well-respected columnist) made on a regular basis.

Some of the best writers out there would look pretty foolish on a regular basis without a good editor. Also, to be fair, when you have places that are more worried about getting it up on the net than they are about it being edited, there's blame there as well.