We had five people fatal this exercise. Not a shocker and not devastating to anyone's grade for the semester, but still not good. Let's go over the goofs.
One was a simple time fatal. The story was received 18 seconds after deadline. Yeah, that's nit-picky. But in this business, deadlines are absolute and unforgiving. You can't get the script for the 11 p.m.news to an anchor at 11 p.m. and 18 seconds. You won't have viewers for very long, and you won't have a job for very long.
Three fatals revolved around the misspelling of the gunman's last name. It wasn't the common spelling of Weiss, it was Wiess.
First, you should have noticed the different spelling. Second, if you found it odd, you should have double-checked with your sources to see if in fact the name was spelled in an uncommon way.
Really, I was surprised no one asked me about that before turning in your assignments. (And that is why I was stressing you to assume nothing. I'm afraid everyone made an assumption of some kind here.)
The other fataler offered this quote: "I handed him a pack, and then he pulled a gun and says 'You see what I go?'" Layoux said.
First, you should have noticed the different spelling. Second, if you found it odd, you should have double-checked with your sources to see if in fact the name was spelled in an uncommon way.
Really, I was surprised no one asked me about that before turning in your assignments. (And that is why I was stressing you to assume nothing. I'm afraid everyone made an assumption of some kind here.)
The other fataler offered this quote: "I handed him a pack, and then he pulled a gun and says 'You see what I go?'" Layoux said.
What that writer meant to say was, "see what I got?"
And this is a classic case of why it is entirely insufficient to simply use spell check to catch your mistakes. While spell check does an outstanding job of catching misspelled words that are in a clearly-misspelled form, spell check will not catch words that are misspelled into another word that happens to be spelled correctly.
Like when you accidentally turn got into go.
In this case, since the word change changes a quote into something with a different meaning, it is a fatal.
I know when you're on deadline there's this rush to finish. Still, make sure you have adequate time to do a basic fact-check. Some of those who fataled in this assignment finished well ahead of the deadline, and left unused several minutes that could have helped catch their mistakes.
Plus, I'd rather have you write a shorter -- but fact-checked and on-time -- story than a longer one. With these in-class exercises, don't worry about length; worry about getting in the information you need to get in, on time and correct.
Plus, I'd rather have you write a shorter -- but fact-checked and on-time -- story than a longer one. With these in-class exercises, don't worry about length; worry about getting in the information you need to get in, on time and correct.
No comments:
Post a Comment