Newsday.com Bungles Headline With Unnecessary Apostrophe

Newsday.com has made mistakes in the past and is likely to make mistakes in the future, but the Proofreader will probably not know about these future mistakes. That is, unless sharp-eyed readers inform him of the blunders. Why? Newsday.com recently placed its content behind a pay wall and there's no way the Proofreader will be shelling out money to see repeated copy errors committed by professional editors.

So, how'd he get this one?

A careful reader sent it to the Proofreader, that's how. Also, it's from September 2nd, well before the pay wall was initiated. The reader, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote in an e-mail message, "Newsday.com made a nice apostrophe screw-up in an article about the Mets; I figured you'd enjoy it. They've since fixed the error, but not before I got a screen capture of it!  Enjoy."

Enjoy (mocking it) we shall, anonymous reader. Notice the unnecessary apostrophe highlighted in the screen shot above. We've seen this type of slipshod proofreading before from the editorial staff over at Newsday.com. The question is: Will we ever see it again?

Ever see copy mistakes that never should've been made? Take a screen shot and e-mail it to the Proofreader.

The Proofreader thanks the Anonymous Reader for submitting the mistake. 

Copy Editors Distracted By Hot Bodies, Perhaps?

Right on the heels of Tuesday's post is another mistake you can file in your "copy editors distracted by accompanying photo" box, which you no doubt have. (Doesn't everybody?) Unfortunately, though, for the much-maligned Newsday Web editors, the Proofreader has learned his lesson about giving out Mulligans, so there won't be any more of that nonsense.

Lately, there's no shortage of nonsense from Newsday.com, although this mistake is almost excusable. Evidently, like what perhaps happened to the editors out in Portland, Newsday Web editors were so engrossed with the hot bodies in the picture above that they missed the spelling error in the first line of the deck. Hot bodies or not, these are pro journalists, so the mistake is officially inexcusable.

"Hubub" is close, but not right. They were looking for hubbub, two Bs, as everyone who's not busy checking out the bodies of Kara DioGuardi (who is that? Seriously. The Proofreader's not wasting time to Google her name) and Bikini Girl. However, it's possible that the editors there weren't distracted by the scantily clad bodies and, rather, just aren't that competent because they've been making a lot of mistakes lately.

One Headline, Two Mistakes on Newsday.com

If you're a regular reader of this blog you know that, lately, the editors at Newsday.com have really been lowering expectations for competent use of the language by professional journalists. Today's example is a new depth reached by Newsday Web editors on their seemingly inexorable plummet toward message board English--or total incompetent use of the language.

As you can see in the highlighted screen shot above, Newsday Web editors showed remarkable mistake-making efficiency. In a headline of less than six words, they managed to come up with two mistakes. Perhaps some perverse congratulations are in order. The glaring mistake, under the "More Movies" heading, is the misspelling "Stark Trek." No--it's Star Trek (sans the extraneous K), as everybody in the developed world knows, including them. Notice they got the movie title right just two headlines below that. Still, the flawed headline, which leads to an AP story, exists in other places on the Internet.

The second error is a little more subtle, but according to several online sources, is definitely a mistake. "Ship mates" should be all one word, like so: Shipmates, as all of these sources confirm. It's not a humiliating mistake like the other one, but it just demonstrates Newsday.com's continuing shoddy work. Hopefully, they'll get their shit together before the entire Web site is unreadable.

Caption Of A Typo

WTF is going on over at Newsday.com? Lately, editors there have been screwing up headlines likes it's their job and now they let some sloppy copy get printed in a photo caption. As you can see highlighted in the screen shot to the left, the caption underneath the picture of the neatly-dressed music teacher claims that this fine, upstanding gentleman "could loss his job next year." Actually, he could lose his job next year and, if he does, that will then be considered a "loss." This article was published on the Newsday Web site on March 26th and, as of this posting, has still not been corrected.

If the Proofreader can opine for a moment here...the euphemistic language (loss, lost, losing, etc.) used in association with people getting fired from their jobs is driving the the Proofreader up a wall because it sounds like a total misnomer. It's not like people wake up bewildered one day and say, "Oh crap...where's my job? Anyone know where my office is? I forget where I work," like they're saying they can't remember where they parked their car. All these people got fired, or laid off through no immediate fault of their own. That means they had their jobs taken from them--they didn't lose them. This practice of sugarcoating is the equivalent of somebody who gets car-jacked casually noting, "Yeah, I lost my car today." Perhaps the spate of recent copy errors over at Newsday is a result of some proofreaders having had their jobs taken from them.

Wayward Apostrophes in Newsday.com Headline

Sloppiness is becoming a hallmark of the entertainment editors over at Newsday.com. A few weeks ago, they seriously bungled the word Oscar in the headline of a story about The Academy Awards. In the headline of an Associated Press story about quarreling lovers Chris Brown and Rihanna, published on March 12th, they messed up again.

As you can see in the above screen shot, highlighted for your viewing convenience, the editors were clueless about where to place two apostrophes. By Newsday.com's account, the stars of multiple Chris Browns have fallen and the stars of multiple Rihannas may also fall. That would be an entirely different story than what appears underneath this faulty headline.

Rather than plural possessive proper nouns, those should be singular possessive proper nouns. Shame on Newsday.com copy editors for allowing the mistake to be published, but give them some credit for at least putting those wayward apostrophes in their proper places and not letting the blunder linger online forever. Pointing out mistakes and letting them linger forever on the Web is the Proofreader's job, thank you.

Newsday.com F's Up Oscar

Newsday, a New York City-area paper, printed a significant blunder in a headline on its Web site today. The mistake was captured and submitted by an anonymous reader. As you can see in the highlighted screen shot below, in a headline for a story about Hugh Jackman's sexiness (naturally, the very definition of "news") Newsday Web editors wrote "Hugh Jackman is Ocar's sexiest host." In an e-mail message, the anonymous reader wrote, "Oh, really? Who the hell is Ocar?"


Given that on Sunday Hugh Jackman will host the 81st Annual Academy Awards show, there's no doubt the editors made an attempt, however feeble, at "Oscar," the popular nickname for the Academy Award of Merit. The derivation of the Oscar nickname is up for debate. But who the hell is Ocar?

Either a bunch of California realtors, a high-ranking military office or an anarchist radio station. OCAR is the acronym used to refer to the Orange County Association of Realtors, the Office of the Chief, Army Reserve and Orange County Anarchist Radio, a "truely independent" Internet radio station based in Califorinia. Yep, the radio station may be independent of corporate America, but it's not free of spelling mistakes. That "truely independent" is their mistake, featured in the logo on its Web site, not the Proofreader's (click the link above to check it out). Also, there's no evidence that the radio station is affiliated in any way with the realtors. One thing we do know, though, is that Ocar is in no way affiliated with Hugh Jackman or The Academy Awards. Duh, Newsday should have known this too.

The Proofreader thanks the anonymous reader for submitting the mistake.