Wrong Marriage Being Worried About in Job Posting

As the national unemployment rate continues meandering between ten and eleven percent, it's becoming increasingly hard for Americans to find jobs--or even online job postings that have been competently proofread. In this recent job posting by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism outfit, apostrophes were neglected almost entirely and a couple of words are conspicuously missing.

According to the mistake-riddled screen shot above, ProPublica seeks a blogger "who has a critical eye" and the company freely admits that they "dont pretend to have all the answers about how investigative journalism should best be married with blogging." Perhaps, ProPublica, before tackling the Gordian marriage of investigative journalism and blogging, your rank-and-file should focus on figuring out the more facile marriage of apostrophes and contractions. How's that for a little advice from someone known for having a critical eye?

And a little advice for you, too, Joe Six-pack job-seeker: Please refrain from sending your résumé and cover letter out with similarly careless mistakes. Even though companies like ProPublica are careless and stupid-looking, they'll never forgive you for appearing to be the same. Double standard? Yes. Solution for both Joe Six-pack job-seekers and careless employers looking to hire? Yes, again. Simply avail yourselves of the proofreading services offered by the many proofreading sponsors of this blog.

Another Mistake In Coverage of Woods Drama

As the number of women claiming to have mounted Tiger Woods continues to, uh, mount, so does the number of mistakes made in the coverage of the scandal. So far, the official tallies: Nine mistresses linked to Woods; three mistakes in the frenzy of media coverage caught by the Proofreader.

As you can see above, this article from the ABC News Web site, about porn star Holly Sampson and pancake waitress Mindy Lawton being the eighth and ninth women to publicly join the Woods harem, is missing a word. While recounting the claims of an alleged Tiger Woods mistress, ABC News omitted the word "other." Rather than "...regularly saw each for sex," the phrase should read "...regularly saw each other for sex." Yeah, it's a stupid mistake, no doubt, which was probably made in the haste to stay out in front of this labyrinthine story, but it's a mistake nevertheless.

Folks, the Proofreader needs help in evening out the numbers here. As it stands now, there are many more alleged Woods mistresses than there are found mistakes in the coverage of the drama. If you notice any printed mistakes in the Woods drama coverage, please e-mail the Proofreader directly.

The good news is: The Proofreader is leading 3-2 in the less glorious mistakes-to-waitress ratio. Three mistakes (two in one article by Slate and the above mistake by ABC News) to one cocktail waitress and one pancake waitress. It's interesting how the media are classifying the waitresses in this soap opera with such exact specificity. Perhaps they know that still more waitresses (who serve specific things besides cocktails and pancakes) are waiting to divulge their affairs with Tiger Woods to them.

Missing Spaces, Letters and Extraneous Letters; Small Mistakes

But they're mistakes, nevertheless. As the Proofreader continues cleaning off his desktop, he offers up a two-for-one Thanksgiving post. As you can see in the highlighted screen shot below, this August 18th story in The New York Times about Brett Favre, the N.F.L. quarterback notorious for his Hamlet-esque indecision about retirement, is missing two spaces in key spots and contains an extraneous N making the word "a" an inappropriate "an." This article has since been updated and the mistakes removed.


It's too bad the Times and Apple don't have some sort of extraneous letter-sharing agreement on the books, because within a few days of the above mistakes, on its Web site, Apple lacked an N where it needed one, as you can see in the highlighted screen shot below.

These are small, nit-picky mistakes, but most definitely mistakes that you wouldn't expect from these two industry leaders.

The Proofreader would like to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, especially all of the professionals who continue making printed mistakes that shouldn't be made.

Cool Picture, Uncool Mistakes

A couple of weeks ago, a local news channel in Portland posted on its Web site this very interesting story about unusually low tides off the Oregon coast. Unfortunately, as Midwest correspondent Stan Kost noticed, the third line of the article, a collaborative effort by KGW.com and the A.P., lacked the preposition "of" where it should've been printed, between "remains" and "shipwrecks," as you can see in the highlighted screen shot below.

Now, it's very possible that the two editorial teams made this mistake because they were distracted by the coolness of the art accompanying the story. How often do you get to see real shipwrecks exposed by dramatically recessed tides?

The Proofreader doesn't typically like to give out Mulligans for this sort of thing. But, for the sake of argument, however unlikely it may be, say he gave these editors a mulligan because he liked the content so much. Well, then the Proofreader would expect that these two professional editorial teams would use that Mulligan wisely and get it right the second time around. Sounds fair, right?

Unfortunately, despite the generous Mulligan, they screwed up again. As you can see in the above screen shot, editors caught the original mistake and inserted an "of" where it was lacking. But then, inexplicably, they decided to rephrase the end of the sentence--and made another mistake!

D'oh!

This time they forgot to place a space between "to" and "see." Why they even tinkered with the copy any further is a mystery to the Proofreader. Aside from the missing "of," the copy was fine. Moral of the story: Leave well enough alone. Oh, and don't give out mulligans. Ever.

The Proofreader thanks Stan Kost for submitting the mistake.

K-Rock Forgets Letter Then Changes Format

If you live in the New York City area and still haven't migrated to satellite radio, there's a good chance you've noticed a difference in the sound of 92.3 K-Rock, the famous FM rock radio station and former home of Howard Stern. And that's because the station changed its format from classic and grunge rock to vapid Top 40 on March 11th. Read the story about it on The New York Times' "Arts Beat" blog and keep your eyes peeled for at least two typos in the blog post (hint: look closely at graphs two and six).

As you can see in the highlighted screen shot above, taken just days before the format overhaul, K-Rock forgot to type an S in the last line of a story about why Robert Plant is reluctant to reunite with the surviving members of Led Zeppelin for what would no doubt be a kick-ass reunion tour. Evidently, K-Rock Web writers and editors, knowing the disappointing change was imminent, slacked off at their jobs. It's hard to blame them for this minor mistake, because it had to be a drag working those final days before the big change which has left Q104.3 and 101.9 as New York City's remaining FM rock radio stations.

Mistake Meltdown at Metro

Welcome back from the holidays. What does the Proofreader have as a gift for you (courtesy of a New York City newspaper)? One edition, three mistakes.

That's what Metro New York daily newspaper printed in its December 23, 2008 paper. At least that's what the Proofreader caught before nearly gouging his eyes out like Oedipus from having to read such excessively sloppy copy on three consecutive pages. There may have been more.

The first mistake, highlighted in the screen shot above, occurred in an opinion column titled "Obama's Cabinet Only Average," on page 17 of the New York edition. Actually, the whole column was something of a mistake as it's poorly written and boasts a depraved lack of inspiration. If you adjust your view to the last word in the sixth line of paragraph three, you will see "hawishness." Clearly, that was an attempt at "hawkishness." The error appeared in all three U.S. Metro editions: Boston, Philadelphia and New York and lives online at the "Metroblog: My View" page.

Another typo appears in the Sports section, on page 18, in an article titled "Welcome To Choke City." Scan down to the article's sixth paragraph which reads, "It's been more woeful that wacky."

Perhaps Metro writers and editors were attempting the word "than" between woeful and wacky. As usual, the mistake is highlighted in the screen shot below, which you can click on to view enlarged. Interestingly, while the mistake on page 17 has not been fixed online, this mistake has been corrected on the Metro Web site.


That brings us to the last, but certainly not the least of the Metro mistakes in the December 23, 2008 edition. On the very next page (18), perhaps the most amusing of the three blunders occurred in a column titled "Media Blitz." Don't bother reading, just skim down to the second section titled "Need to know more about." In the third line, the writer attempted to use the phrase "public relations," but forgot to type a key letter in the word "public." As a result, the phrase reads "pubic relations." Pubic relations! And, one more time: pubic relations. Which reminds the Proofreader, he has some "pubic relations" of his own he must attend to this holiday weekend.


Before he does, though, how'd these mistakes happen? Perhaps Metro copy editors were given an early holiday or maybe they completed their copy editing duties after having chugged spiked egg nog at the Metro holiday party and engaged in inappropriate "pubic relations" with co-workers. Classic typos and mistakes that shouldn't have been made and, while the holidays might be an excuse, they're definitely not a good one.

Missing Preposition In Times Op-Ed

Amid coverage of the stunning corruption allegations against Illinois Governor and jackass Rod Blagojevich, The New York Times erred in a December 10th Op-Ed column titled "State of Shame." The column mainly details the onerous legal position U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was thrust into by Blagojevich's brazen greed. It's an insightful and enlightening piece.

Alas, the Proofreader regrets to report, the otherwise flawless column contains a copy mistake (probably a typo) in the last line of the fifth paragraph, highlighted - as usual - in the screen shot above. Kindly direct your attention to the phrase "Mr. Libby’s perjury and obstruction justice trial" in paragraph five's last line.

The phrase, which references I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2007 trial, appears to be missing the preposition "of." Yeah, it's only a two-letter word and it's not a typo Microsoft Word would catch and it doesn't undermine any facts or anything, but the preposition's absence muddles the phrase.

Since the column was written by an attorney, it's possible "obstruction justice trial" could be jargon or slang used by lawyers, but not likely. None of the lawyers the Proofreader has consulted have ever heard of such lingo. Also, in the interest of "readability," Times editors are usually adept at helping Op-Ed contributors avoid the use of gratuitous slang or jargon. Furthermore, a Google search of the phrase yields virtually no results (other than the column in question), meaning it's almost certainly an error. That it was missed by multiple professionals makes it a mistake that shouldn't have happened.

Worse still, the mistake made it into the printed edition of the December 10, 2008 New York Times newspaper. In case you didn't pick up a copy of the paper for yourself, a picture of the published mistake appears below in the second-to-last line of the fifth paragraph. You can click here or on the picture to view it enlarged and here to see it without highlighting.

Gothamist Fixes Mistake; Invoice In Mail

While some publications haven't responded at all (i.e., The Huffington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, etc.) to notification of their mistakes and some have been slow to respond (i.e., The New York Times), Gothamist editors were decidedly prompt in correcting their sloppy copy pointed out here yesterday. You'll notice in the screen shot (taken today) immediately below, and highlighted, that "nominated" has been added to the copy, confirming speculation made here yesterday. Compare it with the screen shot below, taken yesterday, in which the word is omitted from the text.



Curiously, despite the correction, there has been no public or private acknowledgement made to the Proofreader for alerting Gothamist editors to the slip-up. Nevertheless, an invoice for copy editing services will be in the mail to them shortly. Also interesting, according to an editor at Phillyist, Gothamist's sister Web site, the error was brought to Gothamist editors' attention quite some time ago, but was, for unknown reasons, never fixed. The Phillyist editor also advised that the "Proofreading Philly" column was launched in 2006.

Key Word Missing In Gothamist Sentence

Surprisingly, the New York City-centric Gothamist blog features a copy error on--of all places--its Media Kit page. In the very paragraph containing laudatory quotes from The New York Times and Forbes magazine, the editors appear to have forgotten a key word in a sentence noting the blog's nominations for Bloggie Awards. If you will adjust your view to the second-to-last line of the paragraph, highlighted for your convenience in the screen shots below, you should readily recognize the mistake.

The text reads, "Gothamist has been several times for the annual Bloggie Awards." Has been what? "Nominated" is probably the word Gothamist editors are looking for. Good news. It's available and eager to be used.


Interestingly, the editors at Phillyist, a sister blog of Gothamist, recently began a little proofreading enterprise of their own. Its latest post exposes a spelling error on the Metro Philadelphia Web site. The Proofreader wishes Phillyist editors the best of luck in their venture and offers this caveat: while Phillyist makes a salient point about Metro (and others), that point is undermined a little by their own family's sloppy copy.