Thursday, June 14, 2007

To Inky: Hire More Copyeditors

I'm reading along in the Inquirer this morning, enjoying an article by Mario Cattabiani on Josh Shapiro ("Pa lawmaker on fast track to top") when I see this section:

A former top aide to U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel (D., Pa.), Shapiro got to Harrisburg after pulling off an improbable victory in 2004 over a well-known candidate, former Rep. Jon Fox.

Neil Oxman, the political consultant from Philadelphia, received an e-mail from Chris Mottola, a GOP strategist, congratulating him on his work on Michael Nutter's mayoral campaign. It surely was Oxman's best work to date, Mottola wrote.

Not so, replied Oxman. It was what he did for Shapiro in what looked to be a doomed campaign to unseat incumbent Fox.


Ummmmm, it was an open seat. Incumbent Ellen Bard decided to run for Congress, leaving her state house seat open. True, Fox had held the seat before Bard, and had then been in Congress himself, but he was not in elected office when he and Shapiro vied for the 153rd house seat.

This was just too much of a wowser to pass up mentioning. I can't imagine Mr. Cattabiani making that error and surely Mr. Oxman did not, so let's assume it was put in somewhere along the editorial process. But, wow, that's major.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've also noticed the Inky's fact-checking problems. That's in addition to all the spelling, punctuation, and general sentence-structure errors that pervade the paper on a daily basis. It's really a shame because that's the sort of thing that really adds to the paper's loss of esteem in the region.

AboveAvgJane said...

I agree, there have been more errors lately. It distracts from the content. I find myself going to double check spelling and facts. You do worry when the details are wrong, what else is wrong. It's the flagship newspaper of the 5th largest city in the country. It should be better.