on 4/9/02 11:11, Martin J. Dixon at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > No offense to the writers on this list but it seems like anytime I read a > newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are > numerous. > It makes me wonder about the articles I read about which I know nothing. > Regards, > Martin
Too true! I have exactly the same feeling about subjects I don't know about, and I'm a journalist, although strictly speaking an ex-journalist. At the risk of being a boring old fart, standards seem to have slipped alarmingly. I'm not talking about the specialised magazines here (although heaven knows...) but the papers. The problem is that sports editors will think that athletics needs to be covered. It isn't worth paying for a specialist so send that young kid. That young kid makes numerous errors (and I can think of several in the UK who fit this decsription) although eventually he or she starts to love the sport and the errors get fewer. But along comes another reporter, asks for the cuttings on Viren of whoever and there are those errors. They get recycled and recycled and eventually become truth. And that's not even touching on the fact that these days even journalists om reputable papers make up quotes to embellish their stories, or quote from the internet without checking, or use quotes from other sources without crediting the sources. My, you've got me started... I must lie down in a darkened room with a cold compress. Randall Northam ex editor of Athletics Today magazine, former athletics correspondent of the Daily Express et. etc. Now a struggling publisher.
