blog.shrub

To: Bureau of Accuracy/Public Editor
Janet Hurley, Entertainment Editor
Greg Quill, Entertainment columnist
Toronto Star

This letter is in regards to Mr. Quill’s article, “Shaye no longer a trio, except on TV,” originally published at thestar.com/article/259441. [1]

I was extremely disappointed with Mr. Quill’s sloppy and wildly inaccurate article. It listed an incorrect cause of death for Tara MacLean’s sister, an incorrect number of children for Ms. MacLean and made several false statements regarding Shaye’s relationship with their record company.

Poor “reporting” such as this would not have made it to print when I was the arts editor for my university paper, Imprint. I expected Canada’s largest newspaper to have higher standards. Clearly, I was wrong.

Tara MacLean has enumerated the errors on her blog.

Perhaps Mr. Quill should stick to performing music and refrain from writing about it.

Sincerely,
Paul Schreiber

[1] The article has been updated with some corrections since its publication. That does not excuse the shoddy work.

Jim Romenesko over at Poynter forums explains how to “reenergize readers” — that is, how to fix your newspaper, including:

• Go out in street, see news, write it up.
• Yank all columnists who write with the word “I” or cutesy variation thereof; run no column that contains not an ounce of new reporting; hold public execution in town square of any columnist who writes “searching for a column topic” column.

…if only.

the san francisco bay guardian’s editor, tim redmond, has been drinking something funny lately, resulting in him ranting against craigslist:

The problem with that is simple: When Craig comes to town (and he’s coming to just about every town in the nation soon), the existing community institutions – say, the locally owned weekly newspaper – have a very hard time competing. In many ways, he’s like a Wal-Mart – yeah, landlords get cheaper real estate ads, and consumers find some bargains, but the money all goes out of town. And he puts nothing back into the community: He doesn’t, for example, hire reporters or serve as a community watchdog.

… because his paper is losing classified ad revenue. wah, wah, my business model is obsolete!

Anil Dash told him to jump off a cliff. Well, Anil was much nicer. And more eloquent.

Thanks, Keith Olbermann — that was excellent.

Reuters 2005 photos of the year.

If the New York Times editors were given Gawker’s content, you’d get this.

Common Errors in English.

“If your mother says she loves you, get a second source.”
“If your mother says she loves you, get a second opinion.”

One place attributes the latter to Dan Rather; another to the movie Primal Fear. Clearly the saying predates both of them.

Other variants:
“If your Mother says she loves you, get two independent sources of confirmation.”
“If your Mother says she loves you-get it verified.”
“Even if your mother says she loves you, get two references.”

So: who said this first? where? when? and what did they say?

some news of note:

• George Bush signed and executive order lifting wage restrictions and allowing government contractors rebuilding new orleans to pay workers less than the prevailing wage
• FEMA’s email server broke.
• New Orleans being underwater was preventable.
• Former FEMA head Mike Brown padded his resume
• FEMA refused help from Amtrak, Wal-Mart, the Coast Guard, firefighters and others.
• Jay Rosen reiterates the press may have found a spine.
• Evacuees are stuck — like being in prison.
• Republicans forced a vote on a relief bill without people having read the bill:
  

  the Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives limited floor consideration of the $52 billion Katrina relief bill proposed by President Bush and voted to reject any Democratic efforts to amend the bill to include a wider array of relief measures, RAW STORY has learned.

  Democrats said no one had even seen a copy of the legislation.

• Pat Robertson is once again off his rocker, saying ” John Roberts can ‘be thankful that a tragedy has brought him some good.’”