This AP story on Pokemon got a little ahead of itself

It's kind of an axiom of news writing that the first example you use in a story should back up the lede.

This AP story on Pokemon Go trips over that test ... unless the woman quoted owns the museum.

It's easily addressed. Just extend the lede with a second graf, something perhaps like:  And some people, like xxxx, are so miffed by some of the players' conduct that they're trying to harness the power of online crowds to back up those requests.

Vote on legislative pay can be mined for interesting insight

Everyone was so rushed yesterday about the House's overturning Gov. Nikki Haley's vetoes, especially the one effectively granting legislators a $12,000-a-year-pay raise, that the Statehouse press corps missed a good chance to provide some insight into what actually happened.

The House initially sustained the veto at 6:09 p.m., 73-39, with 11 abstentions and one excused absence. Twenty minutes later, the House overrode the veto, 73-29, with 19 abstentions and three excused absences. (This is a long list of the roll-call votes; you'll have to pick your way through by time or look for "Governor's Veto 76.")

In the Post and Courier in Charleston, it was summed up this way:

Haley had wanted the pay increase to go to state voters for approval by way of the ballot box. Rep. Jim Merrill R-Charleston, took to the floor to explain the effects of the pay raise, answering questions. He did not recommend to override or sustain the veto when it went up for a vote. He also said that the districts lawmakers represent are more populous and more pay would go a long way toward making the job of serving more desirable and competitive. Lawmakers' current yearly salary is $10,400.

Though the House initially voted on sustaining Haley's veto, members later returned to the measure and 73 members voted in favor of overriding it.

That might well lead a reader to think that somehow House leaders were able to round up more votes to reach 73 the second time. But the number of "yes" votes remained the same -- the real story may be that in 20 minutes, enough pressure was brought to bear so that eight to 10 (depending on how you want to count it) House members took a walk. That's a much different dynamic (and well worth a follow-up).

Meanwhile, The State, whose story was picked up widely, got the initial vote total wrong, listing it as 73-29 each time.

The paper has now corrected it online (though without any note of a correction nor, as of 6/19, a correction in the paper). My pointing this out is not to ridicule but because of a deep concern that such things burrow into databases (and that all those versions picked up elsewhere probably won't be corrected), thus distorting the historical record. Online has raised the bar for being careful even more.

AP Style - spell out those state names

I'm not sure why there's all this kerfuffle over AP's directive today that as of May 1 the style is to spell out all state names in text.

It is after all the World Wide Web. We've known it was coming. AP's style keepers first broached this, what, four years ago at the American Copy Editors Society meeting in Philadelphia (to gasps, of course that made them quickly rethink)?

Yeah, it's going to mean reprogramming all those autopilot things we do. But that shouldn't be hard. I mean, really, you think it's easier to remember all those abbreviations -- and then remember not to use the postal codes that surround us -- instead of just spelling out? (OK, you'll have to remember what your elementary school teacher taught you about Mis-sis-sippi, or that it's ConneCticut. But really?)

My students are probably cheering right now.

We live in a digital world -- emphasis on world -- where someone in India can just as easily read our stuff as they can down the street. Just this week, one of my student's stories was published not only in local papers but was picked up on a martial arts publication based (I think) in Hong Kong.

OK, you can stamp your feet, if you want over underway for under way and over allowed for more than. Reasonable people can disagree over the usage/spelling evolution continuum. But whether to abbreviate state names? That's a pure style construct, nothing else. There is no inherent goodness in abbreviating 42 states and D.C. (So why, again, were Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah the favored children -- or odd man out, depending on your view? There were well-stated reasons, but there was no unalterable truth. It's just a reasoned decision, folks, nothing more, just as this new style change is.)

Yeah, it's still a little convoluted; the AP still says to use the abbreviations in datelines. And I think the guidance to avoid using state abbreviations in headlines just goes against reality in a printed product (the problem with these kinds of changes is that they tend to be broad-brush). But whatever. We can deal with it.

In some ways, I see all the hooha as the result of two things:

• OMG, AP is chipping away again at the sacred texts that allow us journalists, and especially copy editors, to be high priests. Man the bulwarks. Shibboleths alert!
• There is a bit of teaching envy in the halls of academe (why do I have to change this stuff every year for journalism class when the math teacher will always be able to teach 2+2=4?)

Welcome to 2014. If you wanted to be able to teach the same thing year after year, you should have gotten a physics degree (wait, that changes too, but at a relatively glacial pace compared with what the Internet has done to language).

Here's the next thing: We might go to putting the year with all dates. Same reasoning - it can be read around the world (maybe the universe before long) and stories have a long tail.

Now, if the AP will just address its gawdaful cornucopia of number styles, we can all go back to drinking. My suggestion continues to be spell out everything one to nine unless it is preceded by a dollar sign or some other symbol.

Or use all numbers, for all I care. For compactness, that might be the better solution.

I can count the howls now.

---

Here is the AP's style note:

SPELL OUT: The names of the 50 U.S. states should be spelled out when used in the body of a story, whether standing alone or in conjunction with a city, town, village or military base. No state name is necessary if it is the same as the dateline. This also applies to newspapers cited in a story. For example, a story datelined Providence, R.I., would reference the Providence Journal, not the Providence (R.I.) Journal. See datelines.



   EIGHT NOT ABBREVIATED: The names of eight states are never abbreviated in datelines or text: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah.



   Memory Aid: Spell out the names of the two states that are not part of the contiguous United States and of the continental states that are five letters or fewer.



   IN THE BODY OF STORIES: Except for cities that stand alone in datelines, use the state name in textual material when the city or town is not in the same state as the dateline, or where necessary to avoid confusion: Springfield, Massachusetts, or Springfield, Illinois. Provide a state identification for the city if the story has no dateline, or if the city is not in the same state as the dateline. However, cities that stand alone in datelines may be used alone in stories that have no dateline if no confusion would result.



   ABBREVIATIONS REQUIRED: Use the state abbreviations listed at the end of this section:



   â?"In conjunction with the name of a city, town, village or military base in most datelines. See datelines for examples and exceptions for large cities.



   â?"In lists, agate, tabular material, nonpublishable editor's notes and credit lines.



   â?"In short-form listings of party affiliation: D-Ala., R-Mont. See party affiliation entry for details.



   Following are the state abbreviations, which also appear in the entries for each state (postal code abbreviations in parentheses):



Ala. (AL)    Md. (MD)      N.D. (ND)



Ariz. (AZ)   Mass. (MA)    Okla. (OK)



Ark. (AR)    Mich. (MI)    Ore. (OR)



Calif. (CA)  Minn. (MN)    Pa. (PA)



Colo. (CO)   Miss. (MS)    R.I. (RI)



Conn. (CT)   Mo. (MO)      S.C. (SC)



Del. (DE)    Mont. (MT)    S.D. (SD)



Fla. (FL)    Neb. (NE)     Tenn. (TN)



Ga. (GA)     Nev. (NV)     Vt. (VT)



Ill. (IL)    N.H. (NH)     Va. (VA)



Ind. (IN)    N.J. (NJ)     Wash. (WA)



Kan. (KS)    N.M. (NM)     W.Va. (WV)



Ky. (KY)     N.Y. (NY)     Wis. (WI)



La. (LA)     N.C. (NC)     Wyo. (WY)



   These are the postal code abbreviations for the eight states that are not abbreviated in datelines or text: AK (Alaska), HI (Hawaii), ID (Idaho), IA (Iowa), ME (Maine), OH (Ohio), TX (Texas), UT (Utah). Also: District of Columbia (DC).



   Use the two-letter Postal Service abbreviations only with full addresses, including ZIP code.



   PUNCTUATION: Place one comma between the city and the state name, and another comma after the state name, unless ending a sentence or indicating a dateline: He was traveling from Nashville, Tennessee, to Austin, Texas, en route to his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She said Cook County, Illinois, was Mayor Daley's stronghold.



   HEADLINES: Avoid using state abbreviations in headlines whenever possible.



   MISCELLANEOUS: Use New York state when necessary to distinguish the state from New York City.



   Use state of Washington or Washington state when necessary to distinguish the state from the District of Columbia. (Washington State is the name of a university in the state of Washington.)

Copy editors at BuzzFeed

Well, isn't this interesting:

But as BuzzFeed continues to grow—four new employees checked in at the front desk in the 10 minutes I spent waiting there one morning—they’re not just adding brilliant headline writers and producers who get the gestalt of cat lovers. BuzzFeed has decided it’s no longer good enough to fix errors after publication, at least not on its most popular posts. They’ve decided it makes good journalism and business sense to assure readers that their posts are true, so BuzzFeed is embracing the ultimate symbol of the overstuffed print newsrooms of the pre-digital past. BuzzFeed is hiring copy editors


http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/who_cares_if_its_true.php

But as BuzzFeed continues to grow—four new employees checked in at the front desk in the 10 minutes I spent waiting there one morning—they’re not just adding brilliant headline writers and producers who get the gestalt of cat lovers. BuzzFeed has decided it’s no longer good enough to fix errors after publication, at least not on its most popular posts. They’ve decided it makes good journalism and business sense to assure readers that their posts are true, so BuzzFeed is embracing the ultimate symbol of the overstuffed print newsrooms of the pre-digital past. BuzzFeed is hiring copy editors. - See more at: http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/who_cares_if_its_true.php#sthash.x0Occ98l.dpuf

But as BuzzFeed continues to grow—four new employees checked in at the front desk in the 10 minutes I spent waiting there one morning—they’re not just adding brilliant headline writers and producers who get the gestalt of cat lovers. BuzzFeed has decided it’s no longer good enough to fix errors after publication, at least not on its most popular posts. They’ve decided it makes good journalism and business sense to assure readers that their posts are true, so BuzzFeed is embracing the ultimate symbol of the overstuffed print newsrooms of the pre-digital past. BuzzFeed is hiring copy editors. - See more at: http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/who_cares_if_its_true.php#sthash.x0Occ98l.dpuf

But as BuzzFeed continues to grow—four new employees checked in at the front desk in the 10 minutes I spent waiting there one morning—they’re not just adding brilliant headline writers and producers who get the gestalt of cat lovers. BuzzFeed has decided it’s no longer good enough to fix errors after publication, at least not on its most popular posts. They’ve decided it makes good journalism and business sense to assure readers that their posts are true, so BuzzFeed is embracing the ultimate symbol of the overstuffed print newsrooms of the pre-digital past. BuzzFeed is hiring copy editors. - See more at: http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/who_cares_if_its_true.php#sthash.x0Occ98l.dpuf

An editor reads the paper, July 3, 2013

A few other things from the larder:

1) Don't make your readers go backward or connect the dots, even in a photo caption.

Reworked: Gaffney's L.J. Peak, with microphone, announces his intent to play college athletics at Georgetown, while Shaq Davidson will play at USC.  (You can't see the crowd, so why mention it?)


2) Watch the numbers - it's mostly just common sense. Consider this excerpt from a Sunday story:

 Fort Jackson has 3,500 civilian workers, who collectively are paid $51 million annually. The 20 percent furlough for the remainder of the fiscal year means those workers will have $2.55 million less to spend on gas, food, entertainment and other commodities. Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter employs another 1,340 civilian workers with a payroll of $59 million. The furloughs will cost Sumter’s local economy $2.95 million this year.

So how does a military base with 1,300 workers have a larger payroll than one with 3,500? And if you do simple division, it suggests the average per-capita salary at the fort is about $14,500 while at the air base it's $44,000. As you might suspect, the average salaries are about the same, and the Fort Jackson payroll is about $155 million. Don't let big numbers make your eyes glaze over - do simple math to break them down into understandable chunks.

(As of this writing, the wrong information is still online - another data point that too many newsrooms still don't get it - while the story was corrected in the paper this morning. Which one do you think can do more to spread inaccurate information?)

3) And not to pick only on my local paper (really, I love you all), this recent story from WLTX-TV was just a mess:

 More than 100 residents are not sitting well with a house committee decision to pass a controversial animal care bill.

Tuesday dozens of residents packed a agriculture house committee meeting, most in opposition of a bill that would limit nonprofit shelters to provide certain kinds of vaccinations to animals.

The sub-committee voted four-zero; passing the bill to the full board. Some veterinarians say this bill will even the playing field between private practices and non profits.

"It will absolutely hurt the animals. This is the most detrimental thing that could happen," said Deloris Mungo with Palmetto Lifeline.

"It has very broad language that is going to restrict what I am able to do," said Janet McKim.

Critics of the bill say it is poorly written, Janet McKim is a veterinarian at a shelter in Charleston.

 "If I don't treat it I am at risk of malpractice but if I do treat it I can be practicing outside the law, so it puts me at an extraordinarily difficult situation."

Those in support of the bill say that this is to level the playing field. But Mungo said restricting residents to only use vets to get their pets spayed or neutered is not fair.

"I have very good veterinarians but I should have the right to go to a private vet if I want to or go to a low cost spay neuter clinic if I want," Mungo said.

Richland County Representative Kirkman Finlay voted for the bill. He says the bill is needed but they need to bring more people to the table to make a fair compromise.

"Groups that are directly supported by the government that are perceived to be in direct competition with these vets are the crux of the issue. The vets are saying we are paying for our competition to come undercut us in price and that's always an issue," Finlay said.

Those in opposition says private businesses compete with non profits in every venue and they feel that this shouldn't be one that changes.

"We shouldn't be dictated to who is going to do our surgeries and how much we are going to have to pay," Mungo said.

Here's a rework. You can decide:


Dozens of opponents are upset with a South Carolina House subcommittee decision to approve an animal-care bill that would keep shelters from spaying or neutering pets.

People packed a House Agriculture subcommittee meeting Tuesday, most opposing the bill. It would limit nonprofit shelters to providing vaccinations and spaying or neutering services only to lower-income people adopting pets. All others would have to go to a veterinarian.

The subcommittee, on a 4-0 vote, sent the bill to the full Agriculture Committee. Some veterinarians say this bill will even the playing field between private practices and nonprofits, but critics say it is poorly written.

"It will absolutely hurt the animals. This is the most detrimental thing that could happen," said Deloris Mungo with Pawmetto Lifeline in Columbia. Janet Kim, a veterinarian at a Charleston shelter, complained that it has "very broad language that is going to restrict what I am able to do."

"If I don't treat it, I am at risk of malpractice, but if I do treat it, I can be practicing outside the law, so it puts me at an extraordinarily difficult situation," she said.

Mungo says restricting people to using only vets to get their pets spayed or neutered is not fair.

"I have very good veterinarians, but I should have the right to go to a private vet if I want to or go to a low-cost spay-neuter clinic if I want," Mungo said.

Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, voted for the bill but said more people need to be involved in negotiating a compromise.

"Groups that are directly supported by the government that are perceived to be in direct competition with these vets are the crux of the issue. The vets are saying we are paying for our competition to come undercut us in price, and that's always an issue," Finlay said.

Opponents says private businesses and nonprofits compete in many areas.

"We shouldn't be dictated to who is going to do our surgeries and how much we are going to have to pay," Mungo said.
Have a happy Fourth.

Edit teach: paring down and steering away from court-speak

So you're on deadline, a verdict is in after a long trial and you've got to pound out those words. It's easy to slip into court-speak and repeat yourself.

As I sometimes post for editing teachers who want examples and my current and upcoming students, here is a story from today and my suggested edited version.

Original (611 words)

A federal civil jury took 1½ hours Tuesday evening to find in favor of Camden Military Academy and its top leaders in a civil trial over whether the school was negligent in an alleged 2008 rape case involving a cadet.

 “The Lord was with us, and we’re just so glad,” said Camden headmaster Col. Eric Boland, 55, choking up with emotion as he walked out of the Matthew J. Perry Jr. Federal Courthouse in Columbia as night fell. He was one of the three named school administration defendants in the case.

The plaintiff in the case, now 18, was seeking up to $7 million in punitive damages, plaintiff’s lawyer Marguerite Willis told the jury in her closing arguments Tuesday afternoon. Other cadets were accused of raping the teen when he was 13.

Willis told the jury it should find Camden Military Academy and three top officials responsible for not cracking down on a “climate of violence” at the school.

 “You are here to stop what is going on,” she said. “Unless you punish these people, you will never know whether this will happen to another child.”

In his closing argument, defense attorney Duke Highfield assailed Willis’ version of events, reminding the jury that Willis’ client had changed his stories about the alleged rape and other alleged traumatic incidents numerous times before testifying at trial.

The plaintiff is “an admitted liar” whose allegations about suffering sexual trauma at the hands of two other cadets only came into focus as he got closer to filing a lawsuit against the school and thought of winning a lot of money, Highfield said.

Highfield also told the jury that the three school officials who are defendants in the suit are exceptional people who have spent years developing a safe and nourishing environment at the 55-year-old school.

 “Do you think any of these educators would allow this to go on if they knew about it?” Highfield asked the jury, speaking of Boland, commandant of cadets Lt. Col. Pat Armstrong, and Command Sgt. Maj. Vertis Wilder. Armstrong and Wilder were the other named defendants in the lawsuit.

Highfield saved his most slashing attack for a key plaintiff’s expert witness, Dr. James Ballenger, who had earlier in the trial testified that the plaintiff’s different versions of events were due to post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the rape.

Ballenger, who earned $125,000 for examining the cadet, basically sells his testimony to whoever pays him, High-field said.

“He sings whatever you want – like a jukebox,” Highfield scoffed.

That brought a rejoinder from Willis, who told the jury that Ballenger – who she said was a nationally prominent PTSD expert – had also been hired as an expert witness at times by Highfield’s law firm.

Willis had used Ballenger to explain to the jury that people who suffer traumatic events such as rape often have memory impairments of the event.

The jury began deliberating early Tuesday evening.

Over four weeks of trial, there were dozens of witnesses and numerous exhibits presented to the federal jury, composed of eight men and two women.

The State does not generally identify victims of alleged sexual assaults.

After the jury’s verdict, Highfield told The State newspaper in an interview, “It was a hard-fought case, a serious case, and we always believed in Camden Military Academy.”

Willis said, “The issues of bullying and violence in schools are important ones, and Nexsen Pruet (Willis’s Columbia firm) is proud to have represented our client in this battle. We believed in him, and continue to believe.”

Cam Walters, head of Camden Military Academy’s board of trustees, said, “We’ve got a fine school, and a fine tradition, and we’re happy to continue.” 

My suggested version (541words)

A federal jury took 1½ hours Tuesday evening to find in favor of Camden Military Academy and three of its leaders in a lawsuit over whether the school was negligent in an alleged 2008 rape of a cadet.

 “The Lord was with us, and we’re just so glad,” said Camden headmaster Col. Eric Boland, 55, choking up with emotion as he walked out of the Matthew J. Perry Jr. Federal Courthouse in Columbia as night fell. He was one of the three school administrators who were sued.

The plaintiff, now 18, was seeking up to $7 million in punitive damages, his lawyer Marguerite Willis told the jury in her closing arguments Tuesday afternoon. Other cadets were accused of raping the teen when he was 13. [It is unclear whether Willis is his only lawyer – if so, commas around her name.]

The State does not generally identify victims of alleged sexual assaults.

Willis told the jury it should find the school and its three officials responsible for not cracking down on a “climate of violence.”

 “You are here to stop what is going on,” she said. “Unless you punish these people, you will never know whether this will happen to another child.”

In his closing argument, defense attorney Duke Highfield assailed Willis’ version of the events, reminding the jury that Willis’ client had changed his stories about the alleged rape and other alleged traumatic incidents numerous times before testifying.

The teen is “an admitted liar” whose allegations about suffering sexual trauma at the hands of two other cadets only came into focus as he got closer to suing the school and thought of winning a lot of money, Highfield said.

He also said the three officials are exceptional people who have spent years developing a safe and nourishing environment at the 55-year-old school.

Along with Boland, commandant of cadets Lt. Col. Pat Armstrong and Command Sgt. Maj. Vertis Wilder were defendants.

 “Do you think any of these educators would allow this to go on if they knew about it?” Highfield asked the jury. He saved his most slashing attack for a key plaintiff’s expert witness, Dr. James Ballenger, who had testified that the teen’s different versions of events were from post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the rape.

Ballenger, who earned $125,000 for examining the cadet, basically sells his testimony to whoever pays him, Highfield said.

“He sings whatever you want – like a jukebox,” Highfield scoffed.

But Willis told the jury that Ballenger was a nationally prominent PTSD expert who had also been hired as an expert witness at times by Highfield’s law firm.

Willis, a member of the Nexsen Pruet law firm, had used Ballenger to explain that people often have trouble remembering traumatic events such as rape.

The jury of eight men and two women began deliberating early Tuesday evening after four weeks of trial with dozens of witnesses and numerous exhibits.

After the verdict, Highfield told The State newspaper, “It was a hard-fought case, a serious case, and we always believed in Camden Military Academy.”

Willis said: “The issues of bullying and violence in schools are important ones, and Nexsen Pruet  is proud to have represented our client in this battle. We believed in him, and continue to believe.”

Cam Walters, head of Camden Military Academy’s board of trustees, said, “We’ve got a fine school, and a fine tradition, and we’re happy to continue.”

Editors (what's left of them at least) need to take special care to help. It's not fair to expect a reporter pounding out copy on deadline to be a master of conciseness. It's human nature -- as Mark Twain said, I would have written shorter, but I didn't have time.

Why I love ACES meetings

I've been absent for two years from the annual gatherings of the American Copy Editors Society. I missed them. I'd forgotten how much till I was able to make it again this year to the gathering in St. Louis.

It's about meeting old friends - and some of them former co-workers - like John McIntyre, Bill Cloud, Wayne Countryman, Joyce Laskowski, Vicki Krueger, David Sullivan, Rich Holden (great to have him back from bypass surgery), Merrill Perlman, Doug Ward, Nicole Stockdale, Fred Vultee ... and too many others to mention.

And finally getting to meet others who have been kindred spirits over the digital divide, like Ruth Thaler-Carter (and having a great lunch).

It's about great sessions, like the annual AP lovefest and seeing my old friend and former colleague Darrell Christian. Or how to make copy readable without making it stupid.

There's listening to a former editor of Hustler - yeah, we concentrated on the text errors as he flashed various examples on the screen (trust me, the other stuff was very tastefully redacted).

There's sharing stories with others in the trenches, especially the academic trenches, about teaching editing and writing and dealing with plagiarism and fabrication. I always come away with new ideas as well as the realization we all are seeing the same thing: students who are great hunter-gatherers if the information prey is on the surface in front of them but who have trouble connecting the dots (or, continuing the bad metaphor, aren't great farmers in making things grow). It's compounded by watching more students increasingly struggle to read things quickly and critically. (I do miss the lunches that we "profs" used to have at these meetings and hope we can resume them.)

There's the great conversation about Southern politics with the guy next to me at dinner.

Followed by a great talk by Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster. Yes, people do read the dictionary, and the online stats show it. Some fascinating things. For instance, what are the most looked-up words? Affect and effect. So don't feel bad, dear student. As I've said many times, look it up (grin).

(And the reminder from Bill Walsh that sentence fragments like those in the previous graf are fine if used sparingly and artfully.)

There is great food. And there are great views.

And there's the reminder that I need to push some of our students more to apply for ACES scholarships. (Yeah, you who are going to that North Carolina city for an editing internship - I'm talkin' about you. My bad for not pushing it more. Expect to get pushed for next year when I get back. Next year's application is already online.)

And most of all there is satisfaction and pride.

• Satisfaction that the reality Nicole and I predicted has come true from when we did those blogging and SEO for editors sessions back in Los Angeles and Miami and Cleveland (and when I went solo in Denver), and people were crowding the room but also were looking at us like we had three eyes and were lighting torches and sharpening their pitchforks. I don't mean smug satisfaction -- we admittedly were out on the high wire and, like everyone else at that time, were making it up as we went. And I remember being almost jumped at the general session in Denver when I got up and suggested ACES needed to start broadening from its newspaper-centric view.
• Pride that ACES has matured, expanded and embraced the digital age and the wide range of editing arts full bore. Yes, some of it was born of necessity, mixed with a bit of panic as ACES saw its ranks thin as newsrooms went through wholesale cuts, centralization (or elimination) of editing, etc. But the measure of a person or organization is not necessarily the motivation, but how they (yes, they -- it's not wrong to use it there) respond. And by that measure, ACES has truly risen to the challenge and found its stride and its strength. And while it still remains too hidden (including, Sokolowski acknowledged, to him), and while editors still too often are seen as nit-pickers and grammar grunts, neither of which has ever been true of those who truly practice the craft, knowing that ACES continues to strengthen is great -- because I plan on attending these for a few more years at least.

Congrats on another great meeting.

Best line seen at the meeting on a T-shirt (paraphrased from memory): How does a copy editor comfort a struggling writer? Just walk over and whisper "they're, there, their."

On to Las Vegas.

AP Style: 'Underway" and numerals

I'm going to take a bow here - AP FINALLY is making two changes I have urged for years. Revealed today at the ACES convention in St. Louis:

underway - Now one word in all uses. Editor-at-Large Darrell Christian says it's to conform to the dictionary. Frankly, AP was being outflanked by even common usage in newspapers. This follows last year's change of "work force" to "workforce."


Numerals - The entry will now be consolidated and expanded in an attempt, as Christian said, to bring things all together and simplify while not sending people hither and yon through the stylebook looking for variations. It will be about four pages long. (David Minthorn noted there were several hundred related possible entries.)

One wrinkle on this - all distances will now be figures. So you no longer need to distinguish between dimensions and distances. The pipe was 3 feet long (dimension) and now he ran 4 miles or the town was 6 square miles.

In a way, however, the AP is complicating things a bit here - why not also take on the duration versus age dichotomy and use all figures there? He is 5 years old -- as it is now -- but why not also he was sentenced to 5 years' probation?

I've urged for some time that the AP simplify its arcane numeral entries. My suggestion was to spell out everything between one and nine unless a dollar sign or something similar preceded it. It works fine for the Wall Street Journal, for instance.

But if the digital -- and especially the mobile -- age requires shortening and figures, I'm fine with that too -- just do it across the board.

And here's another:
Moped: Now one word, not that awkward "mo-ped" that so many ignored anyhow. Did anyone really think that in context people would think it meant wandering around listlessly?

AP's David Minthorn repeatedly says the stylebook is "coming into compliance with the dictionary." So, AP, maybe it's also time to consider changing dictionaries. Webster's New World College 4th (when will we get a 5th - it was supposed to be this spring) is the more conservative -- and, frankly, the most out of step, of the three majors. Merriam-Webster still has its haters as too liberal. So why not American Heritage 5? It has the benefit of much better explanations than Webster's of the reasoning behind lots of its entries.

So will AP also change "gantlet/gauntlet" to favor gauntlet (run the gauntlet) as M-W and AH do?

Get rid of the cop speak

From The State today, a good example of how cop speak creeps into stories and how we can get it out. Also, there are questions about using an unidentified "spokesman" and some other suggestions. My comments (for my editing class) are in bold:


A 23-year-old jail guard has been arrested for allegedly shooting his pregnant girlfriend and then burning her body in woods near Eastover.

A 23-year-old jail guard has been arrested on allegations he shot his pregnant girlfriend and then burned her body in woods near Eastover. "For" still tends to convict, even with "allegedly." And it's a simple change.

   Tristan Gist, a former detention officer at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, is charged with murder and death or injury of a child in utero due to the commission of a violent crime, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department reported Monday. Gist was fired from the detention center over the weekend when he did not show up to work, according to a spokesman in the Richland County public information office.

… according to a county spokesman (who?). Why do we need to get into the anonymous source here if the person is a spokesman - leave the fake skulduggery to inside the Beltway. And if the person is a spokesman, do we need "public information office"? Is there a danger we might think it's a sheriff's spokesman? (And, although minor, it would be better as at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.)

   Gist is being held at the Lexington County Detention Center. He must appear before a Richland County circuit court judge for a bond hearing.

The paper can use what style it wants, but in many styles (including our local style) Circuit Court is capped. But it could be written just as circuit judge. Might also be nice to explain why he's being held in Lexington County (assume it's for safety since he used to be a guard at Richland County's, but why make readers connect the dots).

   The victim has been tentatively identified as Dierra Fisher, 22, of Columbia, said Richland County Coroner Gary Watts. He said he was 99.9 percent sure Fisher was the victim but was waiting on medical records to be certain.

… said he was almost certain Fisher was the victim but was waiting for medical records to be sure. Why do we need the false-precision figure?

   Gist is accused of shooting Fisher once in the head and then driving her body to woods off Screaming Eagle Road Extension, east of Fort Jackson, and then burning her.

A small thing, but ditch the first "and then" for a comma.

   Gist brought Fisher’s two small children with him in the car as he drove to burn her body, said Sheriff Leon Lott.

Another small thing, but for brevity with him can be deleted.

   “It’s probably one of the more vicious crimes I’ve seen,” Lott said. “I keep saying that over and over. When I don’t think I can see worse, something like this happens.”   

Firefighters responding to a brush fire in the 3800 block of Screaming Eagle Extension Thursday afternoon discovered the burning body in the woods. The victim was burned so badly that the firefighters who discovered the burning body could not identify the gender.

The body was burned so badly the firefighters could not tell whether it was a man or woman.

   An autopsy determined the victim was a woman who was about five months pregnant. She died from a single gunshot to the head, Watts said.

An autopsy determined it was a woman about five months pregnant. She died from being shot once in the head, Watts said.

   But Watts had not been able to identify the woman until sheriff’s deputies arrested Gist Monday afternoon.

So the mere fact of the arrest made him conclude it was Fisher? Seems kind of tautological. Did anything else lead him to that conclusion?

   It was unknown Monday who took custody of the two children who rode in the car with Gist, said Deputy Curtis Wilson, a sheriff’s department spokesman.

It was unknown: Does that mean the sheriff's department did not know, or does it mean Wilson said he did not know, or did the kids just disappear into thin air? Avoid the passive that diffuses responsibility. And you can delete who rode in the car with Gist; those are the only two children mentioned in the story and it already establishes they rode with him.

   Gist was the father of one of the children, according to reports. It has not been determined whether Gist was the father of Fisher’s unborn baby.

Whose reports? Police? Media? Twitter? Message in a mayonnaise bottle? And who is doing this "has not been" determining. Another passive that diffuses things. Who said this?

   No one had reported Fisher missing or called the coroner’s office about the victim when the burning was first reported, he said. She has family in Orangeburg, New Jersey and Kansas, and those relatives have been notified.


Who is the "he" here - Watts or Wilson. Who said they have been notified? And why use "the victim"? Just say "her."

   Investigators received a tip Monday morning from someone in the community that Gist might be a suspect in the shooting and burning. From there, the investigation progressed quickly, Lott said.

From someone in the community - what community? Better yet, unless it came from Mars, the default is it's probably going to have been in the community. Is that really needed? If he won't say who, just say that. Same thing with in the shooting and burning. Have we been talking about anything else?

   Several officers went to Gist’s home to make the arrest, and he was apprehended without incident.

Officers went to Gist's home where he was arrested without a struggle. If it's plural, we can assume "several." That adds nothing. And if these were sheriff's "officers," wouldn't "deputies" be more correct?

   Gist admitted to the shooting death and burning, Lott said.

   Gist has no prior criminal record, according to a rap sheet from the State Law Enforcement Division. He was hired at the detention center on May 14, 2012, according to a county spokesman. Other details about Gist’s employment, including his certification as a jail guard and his educational history, were not available Monday.

Gist has no criminal record. Or, if you want to be absolutely on the fine point: Gist had no criminal record. (He obviously has one now.) "Prior" isn't really needed. We can debate whether you need according to a rap sheet from - is the form important or just that it's according to SLED.
He was hired at the detention center May 14. Since it was last year, 2012 isn't needed.
And there's that ghost county spokesman again.

   Fisher’s killing was the third deadly incident of domestic violence in the past week in Richland County.

Fisher's killing was the third death related to domestic violence … 
I'd also suggest during the past week just to change up the prepositions, but that's small potatoes.

   On Feb. 25, Percy Williams, 31, was charged with murder after he allegedly shot and killed his girlfriend, Tabatha Priester, 35, the sheriff’s department reported. On Feb. 26, 28-year-old Adam Jurgen died in a hail of gunfire after he got into a shootout with sheriff’s deputies who were searching for him after he allegedly beat his girlfriend.

If you're keeping score, that's Sheriff's Department under AP style because it refers to a previously named department in the story. But that's the least of our worries, and the newsroom is entitled to its own style.

Numeracy-challenged editing

It's Labor Day, and the livin' is easy. But that doesn't mean the editing is easy or should be any less vigorous.

So I present two exhibits from my morning paper that should have raised flags. The first is in a story about the challenges of keeping South Carolina's college graduates in the state, and specifically in the Midlands (Columbia area):

   The study shows that Charleston – thought to be desirable to young professionals with its beaches, culture, architecture and history – ranks 30th in the nation with a college-educated workforce of 31.9 percent. Greenville, perhaps surprisingly, is in a tie for 68th in the country, with 26.9 percent of its workforce holding college degrees.

   And the most recent jobs report from the S.C Department of Employment and Workforce shows that Columbia over the past year is leading the state in job creation, many in professional services. Of the 11,300 jobs created in the past year, 9,500 are in the Midlands, while Spartanburg created 6,400 jobs and Charleston grew by 4,500. By contrast, Greenville and Myrtle Beach shed more than 3,000 jobs each.

I've yet to figure out how those numbers add up to 11,300, even being liberal and subtracting 7,000 jobs (3,500 each for Greenville and Myrtle Beach). I'm guessing that the difference is in the rest of the state somehow. But why confuse readers? Perhaps it's best to just leave out the 11,300 figure and just write, "Of the jobs created in South Carolina in the past year, 9,500 are ..."

Then there is this from a story about paving dirt roads in Lexington County*:

  Lexington County Council is struggling to settle the fate of dirt roads where some landowners along the routes refuse to turn over slivers required to improve the country lanes.

  Some council members want to shelve the projects, while others want to relay that threat anew to the holdouts, in hopes they’ll have a change of heart.

  The fuss could lead to changes in the way county officials settle annually on paving a few miles each year of more than 600 miles of dirt roads.**

OK, until you come to these grafs late in the story:

   The list of roads earmarked for paving is developed through a checklist based on factors such as number of residents affected, traffic counts, proximity to schools and length of time a request has been pending.

  More than 300 requests are pending to pave about half of the county’s more than 700 miles of dirt roads.

So which is it, 600 or 700?

Numbers need three things:

• Relevance (they must be the right numbers - I'm amazed at the number of stories I get or read where someone is writing about a local situation and starts with a national or regional number; also, if you are talking about a rate, don't give me just the absolute number.).
• Completeness (it's not a "penny" tax increase, for instance, it's a "penny-on-the-dollar" increase).
• Context (the number has to be properly surrounded by any qualifiers or explainers to make it understandable - somewhat related to the rate vs. absolute number problem)

For all I know, the numbers in both these stories could be rock solid. But here's the thing, rock solid doesn't do any good if they confuse readers. Research has shown that too many journalists think just throwing a number in adds credibility.

But throwing in the wrong number or doing it carelessly can leave readers confused, and that's a credibility (if not, eventually, a circulation) buster.

*For those of you playing along at home, the headline on that roads story is Residents block dirt road paving by refusing to give right-of-ways. AP style is rights of way - no hyphens and "rights" as plural. (The dictionary shows either plural form but lists first the "rights" one.) And while I don't think there's lots of confusion without a hyphen in "dirt road," just flip it for greater clarity: Residents block paving dirt roads by refusing to give rights of way

** Duly noted the sentence also is needlessly redundant: "Each year" and "annually" say the same thing, so drop one.

How to explain editing?

We've just come through an "interesting" (if you use the Chinese saying's ambiguous connotation of the term) couple of years here in the basement of the Coliseum as we try to refashion a journalism and mass communications curriculum that is at the same time forward-looking and flexible, yet retains the foundation of good journalism.

During the course of this, we had a family spat about editing's place. To help get the changes through -- because I thought it more important to seriously loosen our current lockstep curriculum so students have more flexibility -- I did not push to have our current required copy-editing course kept as required.

Some faculty were concerned by that, a bit of jostling ensued, and we voted over broadcast faculty objections to make editing required again for all journalism students. More jostling, another vote, and we compromised: the full editing course will be a directed elective, but an editing module will be put into our first reporting/writing course (the one after the general mass media writing).

It's an agreement I can live with, though it means I have to fashion yet another syllabus, this time for the module. (I am convinced the road to perdition is paved with curriculum-change syllabuses.) One of the broadcast arguments was, essentially, "We already teach editing as part of writing."

But it set me to thinking about how to explain editing and why it is different from writing, especially in its teaching, and why it can't really be effectively taught as part of writing (though certainly some self-editing has to be taught as part of that).

Editing is about approaching a story, in whatever medium, in a different way, with a different mindset.

Then, in getting ready for classes this semester, I came across some old lecture notes I'd scribbled years ago, and there was a phrase I think elegantly explains it:

Reporters query sources; editors query the copy.

Think about it and why reporters (and line editors) really should not be asked to copy edit their work. I want reporters knee-deep in what they are reporting, to have the mindset I've got to get it all in. I want line editors almost as enmeshed as they drive the coverage.

Left to their own devices, good reporters want to make sure everyone understands the nuances, the warp and weft that they just know, because they have the expertise, is important. This is good.

Yes, the best writers have a great sense of elegance and prose, but the best writers are not necessarily the best reporters, and vice versa. The reality is that we generally come down somewhere in the middle of both. And even the best writers have to struggle against the shackles of approaching the story from their perspective, not necessarily that of the reader.

The writer/reporter, for example, strives for that great lede (just observe how long it takes many writers to fashion one in relation to the rest of the story), but often it's as much about writing the great lede as a device for the writer to get into the muck of the story as it is for the reader's benefit.

But where the writer may instinctively know the elements of a good lede, of good flow, etc., the editor, when he or she takes up the story, approaches it differently and more explicitly. He or she starts querying that lede: Is it backed up in the rest of the story? Does it overreach? Does the verb tense give the proper sense of timing? Does it signal to the reader this is yesterday's news tomorrow, or in this digital age does it recognize the need to avoid that? Does it have the right tone?

As the editor moves through the story, more querying of the copy, just as if the copy were a living, breathing being the editor was interviewing: Do you have enough background to feel full? But do you also have indigestion from too much in one place?

Do you have any lingering questions for me?

Is everything here (or are you missing a button that you might not have noticed but that others will) … OK, a little too far on the metaphor, but you get the idea.

It's why editing remains valuable and why I shudder a bit as some news organizations think reporters are going to be able to jump into the editing desk as needed. Let reporters report and editors edit, with the understanding that editors also need some new ideas on how to do it to fit the economic realities as journalism moves from an industrial manufacturing business to a service business.

But let's also remember who queries what - and why both sides of that statement remain important.

----
8/230:
Ralph Hanson reblogs a nice piece of artwork that also explains a different aspect, self-editing.

When 'which' vs. 'that' makes a difference

Found this sentence in a story today about the S.C. GOP executive committee endorsing the opponent of long-time Republican state Sen. Jake Knotts:

But Connelly said this weeks’ news that Knotts has accepted at least $5,000 from individuals and companies associated with the Internet sweepstakes industry -- which state law enforcement officials say is illegal -- “put a lot (of the committee members) over the top.”

There's plenty of usage debate about which vs. that. But there are occasions when distinguishing really does enhance clarity.

In this case, the construction can lead one to think the act of accepting the donations is illegal. Using "that" without the separating punctuation (and I find the use of the dash curious, but that's more of a nit) would clarify.

But Connelly said this weeks’ news that Knotts has accepted at least $5,000 from individuals and companies associated with the Internet sweepstakes industry that state law enforcement officials say is illegal “put a lot (of the committee members) over the top.”

But that's one mouthful of a sentence. This is a case where, for the sake of the reader, a few more words might help:

But Connelly said this weeks’ news that Knotts has accepted at least $5,000 from individuals and companies associated with the Internet sweepstakes industry “put a lot (of the committee members) over the top.” State law enforcement officials say the industry is illegal.

That also has the advantage of not detouring momentarily, producing a stronger first sentence.

Now, about the misuse of weeks' vs. week's ... was there an editor in the house?

As usual, McIntyre nails it on the vanishing copy editor

John McIntyre has once again nailed it when it comes to commenting on the vanishing copy editor.

I have become so tired of things that I just kind of shrugged with Digital First announced it was effectively doing away with copy editors at the Denver Post and Bay Area News Group. The cuts took effect yesterday, and here are a few of John's comments from his perch atop the copy editing and production process inside the Baltimore Sun:

When explanations of these and similar changes are made, there is talk of moving away from "assembly-line editing" and "outmoded nineteenth-century industrial processes" to some bold, modern, fresh, immediate journalism that removes all those unnecessary "touches" between the writer and the reader.
This is, of course, cant. The brutal facts are these: Terrified by declines in revenue, newspapers are shedding employees to save money. They are attempting to keep as many reporters as possible to generate content, and they are gambling that you will tolerate shoddier work.

To make this new era work effectively, with the editing/production tasks shifted upstream to the writing/editing level, will require some cultural changes about which I am deeply skeptical.
Reporters tend not to be production-oriented. They want to report and write and take as much time as they can. The question I've most frequently heard from reporters over the past thirty-plus years is "What's my deadline?" (And from assigning editors, too.) Some reporters, as you can see from reading their blogs, cannot even be troubled to run spell-check before publishing.
What you can expect from the copy-editor-free newsroom is a first-draft text from a writer to which someone bearing the title of editor will have made a quick swipe before posting it online. You will notice the typos and lapses in grammar and usage, which stand out. What you may not be so quick to notice is that the reporting is often thin, superficial, uncritical, because no one was there to pose hard questions.

Mr. Brady is right that the old model is passing away or already gone, not to return. Mr. Moore and other editors are right to explore new models, to see what can best serve the needs of the organization and the readers. Editors, people like me and the dwindling band of survivors of the purges, are right to focus on what is most essential for accuracy and clarity. There never was much of what you might call bespoke editing at newspapers, and there's going to be much less now.
If we are smart enough, and lucky enough, we will discover the balance between those feet on the street and those eyes on the desk.

A finger in the what again?

Jordan Kurzweil, in his weekend piece on Tech Crunch retreading all the usual - and important - arguments for why newspapers need to rethink their digital strategies, may also have given us a fine example of why we still need copy editors.

 In case you can't read that: The paywall, whether for Gannett or other publishers, is a finger in the dyke, a cover-up for tectonic shifts in their businesses.

Now, you can argue all you want that "dyke" is an alternate spelling of "dike." But in this case, when "finger" is also involved, a good copy editor would probably have suggested maybe not ...

Editteach: Dissecting another fire story

This one is online today from a TV station site.* (Seems I'm specializing in fire stories these days.) Updated to also correct street name.

Columbia, SC (WLTX)--An early morning fire is smoldering at The Salty Nut Cafe in Five Points.
Not a bad lede. If you are keeping score at home and use AP style, that should be S.C., but no one says the station has to do that. One might also ask why "SC" is needed on a story from a Columbia station, but this is the "world wide" Web, so such things are in flux.

Authorites say there was heavy black smoke when they arrived at 4:30 Friday morning.
Again, not bad (not counting the misspelling of "authorities," but lord knows how many times I've done that). However, this is a breaking story, so why say "Friday"? Still, we come back to the "world wide" thing - it's not Friday everywhere. So defensible.

The fire is now under control, but the 2000 block of Green* Street remains shutdown. Authorities say the cafe suffered heavy damage because they did not have a sprinkler system.
Now we run into some problems. The street is Greene, not Green. Shutdown, one word, is a noun. It should be "shut down" as a verb. And a bar is not a "they," but an "it." That's especially confusing here because the plural antecedent is "authorities" - did they not have sprinklers? (And why not just say sprinklers, instead of the more officious "sprinkler system"?) You could also question here why the phrase "suffered heavy damage because" is needed since the next sentence is more specific on the damage. I'd delete it, leaving just: "Authorities say the cafe did not have sprinklers."

Chief Audrey Jenkins says there was thousands of dollars worth of damage and the building is totally damaged on the inside. This was a very popular spot for people to congregate and it will be a while before they reopen.
Oops. The fire chief's name is "Aubrey." The verb links with "thousands," so "were" is preferred - but "are" would be even better to keep things current in a breaking story. Phrases using "worth" get an apostrophe (thousands of dollars' worth). Even better: Chief Aubrey Jenkins says there are thousands of dollars in damage ... or ... Chief Aubrey Jenkins says damage totals thousands of dollars.

I have no idea what "totally damaged on the inside" means. Totally damaged usually means destroyed, and inside is where buildings usually are damaged, so the whole phrase does no work. Cut it. Recast the second sentence to correct the pronoun and insert a comma (and you can probably drop "very," though I wouldn't get all hung up on that): This was a popular spot for people to congregate, and it will be a while before it reopens. (Let's save the debate about attribution on that for a different time, though I tend not to like naked assertions.)

An investigation is underway and no injuries have been reported.
Again, if you are scoring at home and using AP style, that's "under way," though I have been suggesting for years that AP drop that as increasingly anacrhonistic. A comma would be useful after "underway."

*The story is being updated, so some things have changed from the original here.

**In one of those wonderfully annoying things media companies like Gannett do online to rake in more cash, "Green" in the original story was a double-underlined ad link. Clicking on it did not take you to something useful like a map but to an ad for a Prius. Gotta love it. (The correct street name spelling might have prevented that.)

(With acknowledgement and apologies to Deborah Gump, one of the world's superior editing teachers and creator of the Editteach site, I have decided to use that as the standard header and tag for these kinds of dissections. It just so succinctly sums up what these posts are about. But do visit the site if you want a rich experience learning about editing.)

From the editing trenches: Dissecting a fire story

There was a terribly tragic fire in Stamford, Conn., on Christmas. The day later, the following story appeared in my paper.

I can't tell whether it was an original AP dispatch or was reworked on the local desk. I've found similar, but not identical, versions online that take care of some of the problems noted below.

But the story provides a good case study of editing problems, especially with structure. So I present the original below annotated with my notes (I use these for my classes), and then a re-edited version. Feel free to comment:

    STAMFORD, Conn. — Fire tore through a house in a tony neighborhood along the Connecticut shoreline on Christmas morning, killing five people, including three children, but sparing two whom firefighters managed to rescue.
The typical wire-service lede that puts the actor before the result. And why is it that fires always "tore" or "ripped" or "swept"? Will people be talking about how "a fire tore through a house" or that five people, including three children, died in a fire on Christmas? And why use the general "tony neighborhood" description (is it even needed and is "tony" a common word) when Connecticut shoreline, combined with the home of an ad exec, probably signals all you need? And why make readers wait to find out who was rescued or whose house it was?

    Neighbors awakened to the sound of screaming and rushed outside to help, but they could only watch in horror as flames devoured the grand home in the pre-dawn darkness and the shocked, injured survivors were led away from the house.
Cut this at "pre-dawn darkness."

    The large Victorian home was purchased last year by 47-year-old Madonna Badger, an advertising executive in the fashion industry.
Really? This is the next most interesting thing in the story? How about what Badger was screaming? (If need be, we can add the purchase information after that and include the neighborhood.) And when we finally do use this, we can write it directly, not in passive form.

    Stamford Police Sgt. Paul Guzda said Badger's three daughters – a 10-year-old and 7-year-old twins – were killed. He said her parents, who were visiting for the holiday, also died. Police officers drove Badger's husband, Matthew Badger, from New York City to Stamford on Sunday morning.
The first two sentences are OK, though they can be tightened – and why back in with the attribution? The last sentence, however, raises lots of questions and distracts so early in the story. It would be better to explain who the other person was who was led from the house, then mention the husband.

    The fire was reported shortly before 5 a.m. Firefighters were able to rescue the two adults from the house in Shippan Point, a neighborhood that juts into Long Island Sound, Acting Fire Chief Antonio Conte said.
The best information here was that the fire was reported shortly before 5 a.m. The neighborhood information can be consolidated with the purchase information. And notice that the story still does not actually say Badger was one of those rescued. I'm not sure why the neighborhood information has to be attributed, since assessor's records are referenced later, but to be conservative, let's leave it.

    Neighbors describe Badger screaming repeatedly, “My whole life is in there.”
Move this up, and get the quote to the front. Also, the last "Badger" mentioned in this story is Matthew. That can cause a momentary hiccup in the reader's understanding. It's solved if we move this sentence before the appearance of the husband.

    Firefighters knew there were other people in the home but could not get to them because the heat was too intense, Conte said. “It’s never easy. That’s for sure,” he said. “I’ve been on this job 38 years … not an easy day.”
The first part of that quote does little work given the second part.

    Conte said fire officials don’t yet know the cause of the blaze and likely won’t get clues for a few days until fire marshals can enter the structure.
    By Sunday evening, the roof of the blackened house had largely collapsed.
Those two grafs are keepers but can be combined into one graf.

    A neighbor, Sam Cingari Jr., said he was awakened by the sound of screaming and saw that the house was engulfed by flames.
    “We heard this screaming at 5 in the morning,” he said. “The whole house was ablaze and I mean ablaze.”
Good material that can be moved up. But the quote essentially restates the graf before it. Fix this.

    Cingari said he did not know his neighbors, who he said bought the house last year and were renovating it.
Can be kept.

    The 3,349-square foot, five-bedroom home sold for $1.7 million in December 2010, according to the Stamford assessment office’s website.
Worth keeping, but relocate the information.

    Charles Mangano, who lives nearby, said his wife woke him up and alerted him to the fire. He ran outside to see if he could help.
    “I heard someone yell ‘Help, help, help me!’ and I started sprinting up my driveway,” Mangano told The Advocate of Stamford. There were already numerous firetrucks on the scene.
    “I just came out as a neighbor,” Mangano said. “There’s really nothing I could do.”
    He told the newspaper he saw a barefoot man wearing boxers and a woman being taken out of the house. “The woman said, ‘My whole life is in there,’” Mangano said.
Earlier, she was "screaming." Now she's just saying it? Eliminate the dissonance by eliminating this for now, but query the AP. The quote about not being able to do anything makes a much better ending to the story and, since it just reinforces what came before, it can be cut, if necessary.

    Badger, an ad executive in the fashion industry, is the founder of Badger & Winters Group. Badger was responsible for high-profile ad campaigns when she worked at Calvin Klein in the 1990s.
Keep, but reposition and tighten.

    Guzda said the male acquaintance was a contractor who was doing work on the home. A supervisor at Stamford Hospital said Badger was treated and discharged.
This info should be up much higher. And what was the man's condition? Also, use "released" instead of the terribly officious "discharged." And once we move up that the second person was a contractor, we can more seamlessly work in the idea that Badger bought the home last year

    “It is a terrible, terrible day,” Mayor Michael Pavia told reporters. “There probably has not been a worse Christmas day in the city of Stamford.”
Stamford is about 25 miles northeast of New York City.
Move this up higher (one might argue that the mayor's quote is somewhat obvious – there unlikely has been a worse Christmas – but it still resonates and adds to the fire chief's). And the location, which inelegantly hangs at the end, can be worked more seamlessly into the sentence about driving Matthew Badger from New York City to Stamford.

Here is my redone vrersion:

    STAMFORD, Conn. – Three children of a fashion-industry advertising executive and her parents died on Christmas morning when fire burned through the family's house on the Connecticut shoreline. The executive, Madonna Badger, and another person were rescued by firefighters.
    Neighbors awakened to the sound of screaming and rushed outside to help, but they could only watch in horror as flames devoured the grand home in the pre-dawn darkness.
    “My whole life is in there,” neighbors said Badger screamed repeatedly.
    Badger's three daughters – a 10-year-old and 7-year-old twins – were killed as were her parents, who were visiting for the holiday, Stamford Police Sgt. Paul Guzda said.
    The other person rescued was a contractor doing work on the home, Guzda said. A supervisor at Stamford Hospital said Badger, 47, was treated and released. [Need man's condition or sentence that it was not immediately available. Also should say his name was not available.]
    The fire was reported shortly before 5 a.m. A neighbor, Sam Cingari Jr., said he was awakened by screaming. “The whole house was ablaze and I mean ablaze,” he said.
    Cingari said he did not know his neighbors, who he said bought the house last year and were renovating it.
    Firefighters knew there were other people inside but could not get to them because the heat was too intense, Acting Fire Chief Antonio Conte said.
    “I’ve been on this job 38 years … not an easy day,” he said.
    Fire officials don’t yet know the fire's cause and are not likely to get clues for a few days until fire marshals can enter the structure, Conte said. By Sunday evening, the roof of the blackened house had largely collapsed.
    Mayor Michael Pavia called it “a terrible, terrible day.”
    “There probably has not been a worse Christmas day in the city of Stamford,” he said.
    Police officers drove Badger's husband, Matthew Badger, from New York City to Stamford, about 25 miles northeast, on Sunday morning.
    Madonna Badger founded Badger & Winters Group and was responsible for high-profile ad campaigns when she worked at Calvin Klein in the 1990s.
    She bought the 3,349-square foot, five-bedroom Victorian home for $1.7 million in December 2010, according to the Stamford assessment office’s website. It is in Shippan Point, a neighborhood that juts into Long Island Sound, Conte said.
    Charles Mangano, who lives nearby, said his wife woke him up and alerted him to the fire. He ran outside to see if he could help.
   “I heard someone yell ‘Help, help, help me!’ and I started sprinting up my driveway,” Mangano told The Advocate of Stamford. There were already numerous fire trucks on the scene.
    “I just came out as a neighbor,” Mangano said. “There’s really nothing I could do.”

Numeracy - a minuscule problem

If you were reading along in The State this past week and came across this story,* you might have spotted a problem:

   If state lawmakers want to retire, they would have to give up their seat in the Legislature, according to a proposal moving through the state House of Representatives.

   The proposal would end the practice of lawmakers retiring but remaining in office and replacing their $10,400 annual salaries with much larger pension benefits - more than $30,000 a year, in some cases.

   State lawmakers are members of a separate - and much smaller - retirement system than state workers. Because of that, any changes to the General Assembly Retirement System would have little affect on the much larger state pension system’s debt of $13 billion.

   But lawmakers hope the change would send a message of shared sacrifice to the nearly 500,000 workers, retirees and other beneficiaries on the S.C. Retirement System. Come January, state workers in that system will be asked to pay more into the retirement accounts only to potentially receive lower benefits once they retire. ...

     State lawmakers still would benefit from a more generous pension formula.

   State workers calculate their annual pension benefits by multiplying their years of service times their average final salary times 0.0182 percent. State lawmakers multiply their salary and years of service times 0.0482 percent, giving them a higher benefit.

   Meanwhile, the proposal to change the retirement system for state employees calls for them to pay 1 percent more into the system - an increase of $408 a year for the average employee - while changing their pension formula, which could result in a lower benefit for some workers.

   The S.C. State Employees Association has agreed to endorse having state workers pay more into the retirement system, but only if lawmakers give state employees at least a 2 percent raise. Carlton Washington, the association’s executive director, called the current proposal, which lacks that guaranteed raise, “shortsighted.” But he said the offer from lawmakers to change their own retirement system could be a good sign to state employees.

   “If that is put on the table first, then that would send somewhat of a positive message to employees that (lawmakers) are at least interested in a comprehensive review,” Washington said. ...

It's a wonder S.C. state workers weren't already stocking up on canned pet food for their retirement. A pension based on "0.0182 percent" (or even the more generous "0.0482 percent" for legislators) would be very slim pickings indeed -- a factor of 0.000182 times the average of their last five years' earnings times the number of years worked. For someone making $50,000 who worked for 30 years, that would be a grand total of $273 a year. It's a case of mixing decimals and percents - the factor is 0.0182, or 1.82 percent - or $27,300 a year for our hypothetical worker.

It's what happens when a reporter tries to change the factor to a percent or vice versa** and forgets to move the decimal -- but a sharp-eyed copy editor should have caught it.

(For bonus points, you might also have caught the affect/effect error in the third paragraph, especially egregious from a copy-editng standpoint because it's used correctly in the headline.)

*The error has been corrected in the online story. Perhaps it was by an eagle-eyed copy editor when the story was posted. But since the affect/effect error is still there, my bet is on a correction made after the error was pointed out but never acknowledged online - a more common occurrence for this publication. The copy above is from the PDF replica edition.

** Don't ask me how I know this was it. Take this one on faith.

Foxtrot comic illustrates the inanity of 'and/or'

The inanity of using "and/or" is wonderfully illustrated by a weekend Foxtrot comic. Go to my Tumblr for the comic and discussion.

(Logically, "or" includes "and.")

Blondie makes a common holiday error

What's wrong this panel from Sunday's "Blondie" cartoon ?

Find out.

Ban headlines like this

One inviolate rule of headline writing - it should reflect with fealty what the story actually says.

So let's look at this specimen from today's (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper.

Is there really a "ban"?

Let me help by starting with the last graf:

The provision that Upton got placed into the spending bill will cut off money the Department of Energy would have used to make sure that the regulations are followed. The lighting standards themselves remain. 

Not definitive enough? OK, let's go up a few grafs to this:

In fact, the new standards don’t ban incandescent bulbs, but rather require that new ones use about 25 percent less electricity. The extra efficiency is provided by the use of halogen gas.

We report, you decide.

It's not as sexy, but something like House blocks money for light bulb rules would be a bunch more accurate.