Overall -- Those Darn Fatals

It was kind of a bloody Monday around here.

A lot of fatals. Too many fatals. That's not what we want. I'm sure it's frustrating. And dejecting. And plain old sucky.

The bad news is, eight of you have fataled at least once in this class. Some of you have as many as three fatals sofar. (We'll detail the latest fatals as we go along here.)

That's the bad news.

The good news is pretty endless, though.

First off, that's pretty typical for the first half of this class. The vast majority of fatals take place in the first half. Far fewer take place in the second, as your good habits that you worked on in the opening weeks become second nature.

Second, we have had far fewer fatals in the first half of this class than I did in the first half of my spring class. And the fatal leader last semester was waaaay over three fatals at this point. (Two or three fatals was the semesterly average for any given student in the past.)

Third, as I said Monday, 90 percent of your final grade has yet to be determined. That means you have the opportunity to put good fact-checking to work and end up with a great grade in this class by doing all the small things you need to do to make sure your stories are fatal-free.

Seriously, I'm not a cheerleader. I know from having taught this class in the past that you will improve rapidly in the closing weeks of this class. I know from having been a professional journalist for 17 years that mistake binges are common when starting a new beat or a new job, and they quickly tail off to virtually nothing after a certain level of time on the job has been reached.

That's because when you start out, nothing is second nature. Everything requires checking. You work more slowly because you are working on new techniques in writing and vetting information and being consistent in word usage. It's tiring and overwhelming.

But over time, you become more confident in your writing style. You get used to the quirks of AP Style. You can more quickly attack and assess given information. You more naturally incorporate fact-checking into what you do. And the fatals go bye-bye.

So yeah, fatals are frustrating. But don't get frustrated. You're all about to turn the corner.