Nowadays anything can be considered news, from President Obama having a painful hangnail removed to journalists brawling over bad writing. Oh wait- the second one actually happened!
I don’t know about you folks, but bad writing can indeed make any halfway decent writer’s stomach turn, especially when it’s all marked up like the internal memo from Star Publisher John Cruickshank. Apparently one of his editors was pissed off enough about recent changes the company that he decided to correct the memo and later leaked it to the Torontoist. How embarrassing.
Clearly, the editor was making a point of how important in-house copy-editors are. Like many other media conglomerates, intense restructuring is occurring and they’re even considering outsourcing one hundred union editing jobs. Imagine how their articles would read if it was being edited by an Indian guy on the other side of the planet who can barely speak English, yet alone edit it. That will be some scary Canadian editorial content.
Journalists everywhere are so worried about losing their jobs that they’re even brawling over it. The newsroom has apparently been doubling as a boxing ring over the Washington Post. Pulitzer Prize-winning Punctuation Nazi Henry Allen was outraged after reading an apparent badly-written article by Manuel Roig-Franzia and went on to call it “the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years.” Roig-Franzia then supposedly said “Oh Henry, don’t be such a [c-word].” And this was said right before nearly 70-year-old Allen lunged at Roig-Franzia and started throwing punches. Yikes!
In don’t know what’s more embarrassing: a publisher being blasted on the internet for bad writing or getting beat up by an elderly man? Lesson learned: Every writer needs an editer. Oops, I mean, editor. See what I mean. No need to get physical, ladies and gentlemen.
Henry Allen and Miguel Roig-Franzia
Via: Gawker
