Anti capitalist who hates lower case names
As a copy editor it irritates me when organisations adopt names that don’t use capital letters. The practice has become common in the internet age.
It defies all grammatical rules for a name to be uncapitalised.
I’m a ruthless anti capitalist and kill stray capitals whenever I see them, especially in titles. The president of the Lions Club does not warrant a capital P.
With such a knife-wielding attitude to capitals, one might assume that I welcome the radicalism of names being uncapitalised, but I don’t. It’s an affront to decency, a marketing ploy that has corrupted the language.
How can I justify to readers and cadet journalists that a sentence may begin with a lower case letter? It’s just not on.
A name is a proper noun and should carry a capital letter; eBay should be Ebay, mBox should be Mbox. (more…)
Challenging the Santa myth
I received several calls today about our “street sweeper” question in the paper. This is a daily vox pop where we ask people to comment briefly on a topical issue.
The controversial question was: “Should young children be led to believe in Santa?”
I had more complaints about that than anything else in the past 12 months, including the dead cat photo on page 3 (dumped in a recycling bin) a few weeks ago.
My previous provocative piece was at Kalgoorlie when we published a photo of an escaped surgical patient running naked (except for his theatre gown) down the main street with a catheter attached.
The callers today were concerned that young children might read the Santa question and have their innocence shattered. (more…)
Informed consent
I was surprised the Australian Press Council upheld a complaint against the Sunday Age for obtaining information from a source without informed consent.
The girl was drunk when she spoke to the newspaper.
Which is what the story was about, I remember reading it.
The story was on “ladettes” … young women who drink a lot, swear and party hard. Or as Wikipedia describes them: “loud, foul-mouthed, uncultured and unpleasant young women, who like to drink and smoke and who are often sexually promiscuous.” (more…)
Being honest, rather than positive
A local businessman told me today the paper is too negative. “You have a responsibility to be positive about the town,” he said.
I respect the man and he expressed a commonly held view, so I don’t deride it.
As an editor, it has always been my philosophy to choose a good positive story over a good negative story, if I have a choice between them for the front page. (more…)
Job interviews
I interviewed six young people today for a career-entry position as a cadet journalist. Experience was irrelevant. The applicants were school leavers, not university graduates.
The required skills were good English, an awareness of current affairs, curiosity and effective communication.
I asked each of them 11 interview questions. They all performed okay during this stage, and it gave me an idea of their personalities. (more…)
Mount Gambier tennis final
I watched the final today of the Mount Gambier Blue Lake Women’s International tennis tournament between Natalie Grandin of South Africa and Melanie South from England.
Grandin won 7-6, 6-4.
I felt like gadget man, wired with a mini laptop, mobile phone, camera and video camera. I twittered live scores to http://twitter.com/borderwatch and these were picked up by at least one website in the United Kingdom.
My photos are online here. I think they’re pretty good for a small $450 camera.
It was a great contest to watch, plenty of rallies and not too many unforced errors. The match lasted just under two hours.
Here’s a video of the last two points:
Live reporting from the tennis
I’m going to try something new today … live online reporting of the women’s international tennis final between Melanie South (Eng) and Natalie Grandin (RSA).
I’ll be posting scores to Twitter from 3.30GMT.
After mentioning the possibility yesterday, a couple of British tennis websites linked to the Twitter address. Although the match will be played in the wee hours their time, there might be some keen fans following it.
I have this fear that my phone battery will die half way through, so I’m taking the mini laptop as well. Between the two of them I should make it to the end unless it’s a long three sets.
I’m also going to try taking photos and some video.
