I’ve been shaking my head over CNN’s tsunami coverage. I know they are working in haste and under pressure (and nobody’s perfect — I just made a bad blooper myself, letting “guerrilla” get by me with one r), but when you’re reporting a disaster, and accurate information is crucial, a wrong or missing word can disappear a thousand people with a non-stroke of the pen. For example:
Authorities have evacuated people living 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the reactor, according to the prime minister.
That’s nonsense, of course (imagine evacuating a ring of people at a precise distance from the nuclear plant). All that’s missing is the word “within” (which would also entail changing “from” to “of”).
Even worse is this headline on the front page:
Pump system caused nuclear blast
The full headline on the linked article:
Japanese official says pumping system caused nuclear plant blast
Yes, a small amount of radioactivity was released, and technicians are still racing to cool the fuel rods in several reactors. Still, space constraints are no excuse for equating a steam explosion with a mushroom cloud. A better solution would have been
Pumps caused nuke-plant blast
Okay, okay. No one was hurt by mere misinformation. But copy editors can work fast and under pressure, too. Why don’t they have someone sweeping up behind the headline writers and the wire services?
The trouble is that under pressure these little mishaps are missed, However, the same mistakes are then copied and every newspaper quotes “living 20 kilometres from”. Then of course it becomes acceptable as “natural usage” and logic goes out of the window. I’ve seen it on CNN it must be right. It undoubtedly has 6 million google search results by now!
Comment by Tim Barker — May 2, 2011 @ 6:08 pm |