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John Varela - 17 Jan 2010 20:33 GMT

Interesting article in The Washington Post today, written by the
Post's ombudsman:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2009/02/25/LI20
09022502075.html

or

http://preview.tinyurl.com/dl86cf

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John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email

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Peter Duncanson (BrE) - 17 Jan 2010 22:36 GMT

>Interesting article in The Washington Post today, written by the
>Post's ombudsman:
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
>http://preview.tinyurl.com/dl86cf

I like the final paragraph. Having discussed the copyediting problems
the writer concludes:

In the end, nothing can replace the experienced, fastidious copy
editor. And nothing can help them more than reporters getting it
right in the first place.

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Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

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Cece - 18 Jan 2010 19:18 GMT

On Jan 17, 4:36 pm, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
wrote:

> >Interesting article in The Washington Post today, written by the
> >Post's ombudsman:
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> Peter Duncanson, UK
> (in alt.usage.english)

Exactly! Too many people rely on technology (software) to fix any
spelling or grammatical error made, and to do routine tasks (like
splitting a word at the end of a line). Unfortunately, the programmer
is either ignorant about these things, or he does not know how to
write a program that will accomplish them. And no human ever looks at
the final ready-to-print! In the entire publishing industry, except
perhaps in university presses producing scientific articles and texts
-- and I recommend keeping an eye on them. New York book publishing
houses are pathetic.

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Eric Walker - 18 Jan 2010 05:11 GMT

> Interesting article in The Washington Post today, written by the Post's
> ombudsman . . . .

It brings to mind a title from Trollope: _The Way We Live Now_.

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Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/

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Athel Cornish-Bowden - 19 Jan 2010 12:17 GMT

> Interesting article in The Washington Post today, written by the
> Post's ombudsman:
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/dl86cf

"Why the increased errors? Clearly, reduced staffing plays some role. A
decade ago, at its peak, The Post's newsroom had more than 900 FTES
(full-time equivalent employees), and that didn't include an online
staff that was then working separately. Today, the now-integrated print
and online staffs total about 650 FTEs, producing the newspaper and a
dramatically expanded 24-hour online product."

I'm not sure I accept this analysis. It depends on how much bigger the
"dramatically expanded 24-hour online product" is. However, if they use
the computer-based aids _intelligently_ I see no reason why 650 people
should not do the work of 900 working without such aids a decade ago.
The problem I see around me today is that too many people just use
their machines in a completely blind way, not even asking the question
of whether they have done the right thing.

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athel

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John Varela - 19 Jan 2010 20:04 GMT

> I'm not sure I accept this analysis. It depends on how much bigger the
> "dramatically expanded 24-hour online product" is. However, if they use
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> their machines in a completely blind way, not even asking the question
> of whether they have done the right thing.

The Washington Post has been using newsroom automation since some
time around the late 1970s. I have a friend who worked on that
project at Raytheon. The Post is probably on its third or fourth
generation automation by now. I have no idea how intelligently they
are using it, but after 20+ years surely they've worked out a lot of
kinks.

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John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

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