By Robert Lockard
I love reading news and blogs, but sometimes I can’t help wondering why on earth a piece got published in its flawed condition. I’m a natural editor, so when I’m reading I’m also critiquing and trying to understand what the author is really saying. When I notice improper grammar or simple spelling errors, I am pulled out of the story. Sometimes it gives me severe whiplash.
The reason I bring this up is because I read an article on Thursday, March 5, 2009 in The Wall Street Journal, entitled “GM Auditors Raise Doubts on Auto Maker’s Viability.” The article was so poorly written that I just had to start writing about it to get it out of my head and encourage others to learn from it.
Just look at these mistakes, with my commentary (in italics) beneath each one:
- The news sent GM sparked a deep drop in the company’s stock.
Sent GM sparked? It looks like they started one thought, but then came up with different wording and simply forgot to go back and edit it. They probably meant to say, “The news sparked a deep drop in the company’s stock.”
- “Our recurring losses form operations, stockholders’ deficits an dinability to generate sufficient cashflow to meet our obligations and sustain our operations raises substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern,” GM said it is annual 10K filing.
So many mistakes in one paragraph. This is the part that forced me to start writing. I’m amazed by all of the errors in here. Didn’t anyone notice these during the editing process? For instance, I’m not sure what an dinability is, but I do know what “and inability” means. Also, I had no idea that recurring losses form operations. How interesting.
- GM also said that expects to record a significant loss that could exceed $1 billion over the reorganization of Saab, its Swedish auto maker in bankruptcy protection.
So close.
- On Thursday, however, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told Deutschlandfunk radio that GM still hasn’t provided a plan that justifies government help for restructuring Opel. “What we have received so far is no basis for the government to make a decision,” Mr. Steinbrueck told the radio.
That last word makes it sound like Mr. Steinbrueck was talking to an actual radio. That’s a funny image, but it’s not quite what the authors meant to say. It would have been better to include “station” after radio or something like that.
You might remember my blog post on making content king on your website. In that post, I discussed grammatical errors in a New York Times article. Even respected publications like these can make serious errors that hurt their credibility. Be sure to edit your work before you publish it so that people can listen to what you have to say without focusing so much on the way you say it.
I’ll get back to writing about ecommerce and search engine optimization in my next blog post. I just had to get this off my chest. Whew! I feel much better now. The photo of the abnormally high temperature is from Flickr and it is the copyright of Sister72.
For a dozen years or so email was the freshest, easiest way to keep in touch with people over long distances without having to pay big phone bills. Now it’s old hat. Basically, the paradigm of online communication has changed and we’re all going to have to change with the times.
Journalism is a thankless job.