Anti capitalist who hates lower case names

Posted on December 20, 2009 at 4:18pm | 3 comments

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

Posted on December 23, 2008 at 6:46pm | 4 comments

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

Posted on December 14, 2008 at 1:25pm | 1 comment

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

Posted on November 20, 2008 at 5:24pm | 1 comment

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

Posted on November 14, 2008 at 6:04pm | 21 comments

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

Posted on October 19, 2008 at 7:38pm | 0 comments

Melanie South 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

Posted on October 19, 2008 at 8:41am | 0 comments

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.

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