Accuracy within journalistic writing is an attribute that every writer, editor, and publisher strive for. Any error made inprint is a grave mistake, a tarnish upon a news institution's polished reputation; however, mistakes can not be avoided, and because people are not perfect beings, mistakes are unavoidable, and whether it be 3000-population Lac La Biche Post, or the New York Times, no publication is safe from the wrath of a mistake made in print, whether it be a literal error, or an error caused by faulty information- no one is safe from the print error forever. The grave print error could be seen by readers as a reflection upon a news group's reliability, thus making a mistake that is published is to be avoided at all costs. This is why practices such as proofreading and copy-editing exist-to catch an error before it's actually printed. Lessons and improvements can always be crafted from mistakes, but the goal is to catch the error before ink hits paper or the Send tab is hit. Journalists are conditioned to fear mistakes, and rightly so-accuracy is key in journalism.
Out of all the mistakes printed in the news, many of them are simple, oft-overlooked typographical errors, such as this one, caught in the Edmonton Sun, in an article ironically headlined 'Pandas Were Perfect', with perfection not being the case with this article. The error noted reads: "Leah Copeland and Stephanie Ramsay jonined Vinge on the tournament all-star squad, while Ramsay was tournament MVP." The offending mistake is the mispelling of the word 'joined', a simple error, overlooked most likely due to haste-an unfortunate ailment in the deadline-driven industry of Journalism. Although typographical areas rarely perturb someone so much so that they don't understand a part of the article, they still aid in making the article appear less reliable, and it's obvious that the article was rushed. With articles being short and broken up, a careful once-over for typos wouldn't be a task that eats up alot of time, and small errors like those could be quickly fixed, aiding to create an article that appears much more reliable.
Although typos occur to the best of writers and are common due to the nature in which the mistake is made ( a slip on the keyboard, an extra, unnoticed letter-piizza anyone?) making typos something of a common occurence, when referring to errors found in a news story. Other common errors are grammatical ones. This could be anything from an ommitted period, comma, apostrophe, hyphen or other grammatical signs, to an awkwardly worded sentence that just doesn't make sense. One such error is found, once again, in the not-so-perfect 'Pandas Were Perfect' article. The offending error in this case, is simply a phrase in a paragraph all on its own, with nothing written but 'Bears bummed' , and also missing its period, making it an incomplete sentence. To give more context to the error, here is the paragraph before the error, and the paragraph after, taken verbatim:
"The Pandas will arrive at the Edmonton International Airport with the banner on tonight at 8:40 p.m. on WestJet flight 533.
Bears bummed
As expected, the two top volleyball teams in the country met in the CIS championship tournament, but they weren’t playing for the gold medal."
This was published March 14,2010. So what does the phrase in the middle mean? Was it the start of a new thought that didn't get finished? What's missing? These, and other questions remain unanswered. Although a simple looking error, there is no context for it, and it really just doesn't make sense, especially considering the article's headling is penned 'Pandas Were Perfect'.
Although grammatical errors are harder to find, one that is quite commonly found is instances in which an apostrophe is, or isn't used. Chicken wing's and Beer, anyone? This is a grammatical fault in which students have had drilled into their head to avoid since the earliest years of english grammar education, yet, it's a quick and easy mistake to make, and one that a Vue Weekly writer made in a recent article about sexual assault.
"To ensure anonymity, the survivors name is not attached to the file." The survivors? Is this a group, or is it a name belonging to an individual surivor? Because an apostrophe was forgotten to be included, the actual meaning is ambiguous. Even if it was a group, an apostrophe is still needed, because in this case, the word 'name' is something belonging to the survivors, hence it should read "Survivor's name", not "Survivors name.", because an apostrophe is Although a small, almost unnoticeable mistake, it is still one that may cause confusion, and is a mistake that is easy to overlook by both writer and editor. Because apostrophes are also used to make contractions of words, it may become confusing as to where to use an apostrophe, which consequently makes it difficult to understand when there isn't one when there is supposed to be.
Although journalists are conditioned to fear mistakes, they will still happen, despite editor's and writer's best efforts to do so otherwise. In today's world of journalism, with the advent of the Internet, iPhones, blogs, Twitter, RSS feeds and much, much more, the journalist is required to write meaningful, newsworthy, and accurate reports, in a fraction of the time. Time indeed may be a critical source of many errors found in online newsgroup's stories, and no doubt may be an unavoidable occurence as haste required to post a story before a competitor does, or before an uncredible writer posts a blog about it, making the career journalist look incompetent. Because of the nature of the way things are handled in the 21st century, mistakes are bound to occur, despite a journalist's best efforts. However, people are not perfect creations, and are fallible. Mistakes, whether in print or in some other medium will occur time and time again. Journalists can be indoctrinated to fear mistakes, errors, and innaccuracies from the beginning, and although errors of large magnitude are severely limited, errors will occur from time to time, with the best explanation behind them being people are only human, and errors are always made-it's just a fact of life.
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