Obits: Just A Few Things

First off,  we have some fatals to go over. Really, a lot of fatals. Nine out of 18, to be exact. That means one of every two people fataled. It's the biggest fatal binge of the semester, on an assignment that in past classes has typically been the easiest assignment of the term.

And it's the usual variety.

In three cases, we misspelled the first name of Terrence as Terrance, with an "a." Three!

In another instance, we spelled Terrence as Terence, with only one "r."

In two other cases, the last name Burnes was misspelled as the more common Burns, without the "e."

Also, we misspelled "fine" as "ine" -- with the "f" missing -- inside of a quote. Any misspelling inside of a quote is a fatal.

In another case, we alternately spelled the restaurant's name as Deacosta's and Deacista's. Obviously, one had to be wrong, right?

Also, in one case we said the dead guy was a resident of Chicago. In fact, he was born in Chicago and moved to East Lansing as an infant. (Remember all pertinent unspecified locales were East Lansing?)

(In regard to all these fatals, I'm wondering if I did you guys a disservice in allowing for so many practice stories to be done as homework, in that you didn't have to balance writing and fact-checking with deadlines in such a rigorous way as when we do practice stories in-class with a stricter and more immediate deadline.)

(I know some of you think I can be tough, but in this case I'm fearing that I wasn't tough enough to a point where we worked out bad habits and instituted good habits by more realistically simulating deadline conditions.)

(Unfortunately, we are just about out of time to keep working on this. I implore you to take the fact-checking strategies we've discussed and that are offered in this blog and make sure you implement them each and every time from here on out, and into your communications careers.)

Next, let's remember this lessons from the first few days of class: journalists do not use euphemisms -- words or terms used in place of more direct terms or words -- we use direct language.

In the case of this assignment, that means we don't say someone passed away,which is a euphemism for dying. So we simply say they died.

Plus, we should have capitalized the names of the medals he earned: the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Why? Because those are the specific names of specific medals. And we capitalize specific names. Which is why a certain person is Terrence Austin and not terrence austin, and why a certain type of car is a Ford Mustang and not a ford mustang.

Also, one last AP style check: when we have multiple people with the same last name in a story, then we throw out the usual AP Style rule where in first identification we use first and last names, and from then on just the last name.

Instead, in these instances we use the first and last names throughout, for every person who shares the same last name. Including the deceased, in this case.

Now, you don't need to start using the full name after the first reference until you actually hit a second Austin in your story. But once you do, its firsts and lasts the rest of the way.

Finally, you would know you should capitalize Marines if you looked in your AP Style Book under the heading of, Marines.