Missing/Robbery: Fatalspalooza 2012

Another pair of exercises, another batch of fatals. Let's look and try to learn from mistakes:

Double-check your names! One of you referred to professor Alan Christopher as Alan Christophe, with the "r" at the end missing. Yes, that is a fatal. Yes, that sucks. Please double-check names to make sure they are correct.

Another one of you referred to the robber Robert Wiess as Weiss. That is also a fatal.


Don't trust spell check alone! One of you wrote that the story had a history of holdups. When you said story, you meant store. Since that changed a fact, that's a fatal. After all, the story had no history of holdups. The store did. And since your misspelling of store created a new but unintended word that happened to be spelled correctly, you can chalk this one up to trusting spell check too much. Please eyeball your story line-by-line before turning it in to make sure there aren't any misspellings that spell check wouldn't catch.


Look for inconsistencies in information! In one story, you spelled the robber's name as both Wiess and Weiss, in different sections. A thorough review of names after you finished writing but before you turned the story in would have revealed the dual spellings, for which you know one obviously has to be wrong.


We also had fatals on a make-up assignment that was not an exercise assigned to the class in general.

For that one, make sure you're clear on who said what! In it, a quote attributed to an agency was mistakenly attributed to an individual. In the information set you were given, the quote was listed right next to a change in speaker.

None of these fatals are over something remarkable. Each is regarding a very basic task we have to fit in, on deadline, every time.

I know we're rushed for time, but our goal as journalists is to balance two competing factors: time and accuracy. Not to give lip service to one and concentrate on the other. In doing deadline assignments, please make sure you're finding time to do double-checking. I'd rather have you write short than incorrectly.

For those of you scoring at home, as of this morning seven of 12 members of this class are members in good standing of the JRN 200 Fatals Club. I'm coming for the rest of you soon.