What Happened to Spelling and Punctuation? -- Dave's Linotype Website

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Subject: What Happened to Spelling and Punctuation?

Author:
John_Henry

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Date Posted: 10:28:34 06/06/01 Wed
In reply to: Dave Hughes 's message, "What effect has New Technology had on newspaper quality?" on 10:24:10 06/06/01 Wed

I would agree with David's comments regarding the ease with which graphics can be manipulated with the newer graphics editing software. It is also easy for a designer to change the setting of an article - for instance going from 3-col to 2-col in the space of three. Of course, this would require complate re-setting in the hot metal world, and was not allowed withion the daily pace of a newspaper. I do see a very real degradation of the quality of the content of the papers I read. This not due to the technology, but rather the elimination of two extra people in the mix - the lino operators and the proofreaders/copy editors. It is not unusual for the editor these days to be a people manager, and not the manager of the news. He/she makes assignments and, quite often, never sees the written piece until it appears in the paper. The only time most editors are consulted is when the piece has a controversial "angle" which needs managerial scrutiny before publication. I know that twenty years ago, as a journalism professor at a major American University, our entering class of journalism majors were tested for basic English proficiency. We found 40 percent of these applicants could not pass the basic test. We offered a remedial course called "Bad Breath for Journalists" which offered at least an awareness of what types of things needed to be improved in the writing style of these budding journalists. Nothing exisits in the current American newspaper to allow a critical eye for writing style, spelling or punctuation.

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Bad line breaks - no readers	IanW	10:31:03 06/06/01 Wed