Needles and Plastic: “Former All Black, and prostitute”

“Former All Black, and prostitute”

23 February 2007

Copy-editing is so old skool, isn’t it? All that guff about proper grammar [not to mention spelling] – it’s out the window in today’s world, right?

This seems to be the case with Radio NZ news these days [don’t even get me started about newspaper writing – English not a job requirement at our local rag]. In the last week I’ve heard several howlers that stopped me in my tracks – I fully expect to hear ‘piano for sale by old lady with carved legs’ before the week is out.

So what?

Well – what, actually. Emphatically what.

Clarity and correctness of expression is a benefit in any communication situation, especially in a media outlet professing to present ‘quality news’. This morning I heard the best one yet. A serving police-officer is on trial for something, the details aren’t relevant so I won’t bore you. Evidence has apparently been given on matters of fact by someone whose name I’ve forgotten, I’ll call him Joe Blow for the purposes of this rant.

A friend of the accused, Joe Blow, a former All Black, and a doctor, were called to give evidence.”

In print, that word ‘were’ stands out clearly in a way it does not when spoken on the radio. The overall syntactical structure of the sentence suggests that the former All Black is a doctor. This was how I heard it until I was able to recall the use of the word ‘were’ rather than ‘was’, and I realised that two people had given evidence on the matter. Anyone ever heard the usability principle - ‘don’t make me think”? Please!

How many listeners using only half an ear think that Joe Blow is a doctor? Does it matter? - probably not: but only by sheer chance. What if that other witness was a prostitute? Or a prison inmate? If I was Joe Blow, I’d be calling my lawyer, and Radio NZ’s head of news would be wondering how much the omission of the word ‘both’ at the start of that sentence was going to cost his or her employers.

Information design isn’t just interactivity, flash graphics and extreme software skills – there’s a lot of old skool stuff that has to be nailed down as well. And if not all the team at work has those skills, you have to wonder if its not worthwhile employing someone who can at least sometimes act as a sub-editor?

And prostitute.

Labels: information design