My fingers must have slipped

When Nine takes over Fairfax later this year, one hopes that there will be less spelling errors in their newspapers. These are particularly embarrassing in the Letters to the Editor section. 

Slaps hand on forehead

Just when I thought The Age had lifted its game in its production quality, it managed to print an article in which the printing of the writer's name is completely illegible.

Close, but no cigar

I almost read an entire edition of The Age without finding one production error, and thought that their editorial department had lifted its game lately. Alas, no. I noticed this error in the AFL football tips ratings table. It seems that the Gold Coast Suns are going to be playing against both Fremantle and Port Adelaide this round. Port Adelaide's match is actually against the GWS Giants, and not the Suns. Attention to detail, please, Fairfax editorial department. 

Whoops a daisy

The Victorian government today announced a massive increase in funding programs aimed at reducing family violence. This is welcome news. It's a pity that The Age made a mistake in its article about this announcement. The first paragraph says that just over half a billion dollars will be spent on these programs over the next two years. The headline gives the figure as $570 billion dollars. It makes me wonder if The Age's editorial department these days is run on the smell of an oily rag. The Victorian government's total expenditures are forecast to be $52 billion for the 2015-16 fiscal year, so there's no way it can afford to spend that amount of money. The Age's editorial staff need to lift their game.

No ambitions to be a copy editor

Attention to detail is an essential attribute in my line of work. Yet again I noticed more errors in today's edition of The Age. Exhibit one is from an article reporting that Australian businessman Dick Smith being asked to stand as a candidate against Bronwyn Bishop at the next federal election, due to be held some time this year. It states that Smith used to run his National Geographic business from inside the electorate.

The journalist who wrote this article got his wires crossed. Dick Smith founded Australian Geographic magazine and the Australian Geographic Society in 1986, and sold it to Fairfax in 1995. National Geographic magazine and the National Geographic Society were founded in the United States in 1888.

Now for Exhibit 2. I later found an inaccuracy in an article in the business section, analysing Australia's present economic conditions. "We haven't had a recession since late 1991," writes our esteemed journalist. Technically this is correct, because the recession technically ended in the September quarter of that year, but his statement is ambiguous. Statistically speaking, the recession lasted from 1990 to 1991, but it ended much later in Victoria, which was particularly hard hit. The meaning would have been clearer if he had written "we haven't had a recession since 1990-91."

If you aspire to a career in copy editing for print or online, please check the copy for incorrect information, or poorly worded sentences, because automated spell checkers won't fix these for you.

http://theconversation.com/cabinet-papers-1990-lessons-from-the-recession-we-didnt-have-to-have-52153

Where's a red pen when you need one?

The Age's editorial standards have really deteriorated since they changed from a broadsheet to their tabloid (no, it's not a tabloid, it's a compact) format. I took a picture of this article about the Victorian state government's proposal to build a new toll road in the western suburbs. As you can see, it was published with an incomplete sentence in the last paragraph. No, I'm not offering them my services.