I hang my head in shame over the grammatical error in our Friday story about the earthquakes in Yellowstone National Park.
Although the error was corrected when it got to the online version, the first sentence of the story that ran in the paper read:
“The rumbling appears to have abated, but University of Utah scientists are busy analyzing a ‘swarm’ of 900 earthquakes that have strucken Yellowstone National Park since Dec. 26.”
After he picked himself up off the floor, one reader e-mailed:
” ‘A cluster of earthquakes that have strucken ?’ Please tell me your copy editor was on vacation ”
Over the past months, as I am sure most of our readers know, the bottom fell out of the economy. The Salt Lake Tribune has not been immune to this recession. That means we have fewer copy editors looking at stories before they go into the paper.
From time to time, we will pull a real boner.
I saw the final proof from Friday’s A1 and read the editor’s notation to change the verb form to either “struck” or “stricken.” In a hurry to get the page sent to West Valley City for printing, the copy editor chose “stricken” but did not change the “u” to an “i.”
Personally, I would have gone with have struck.
Confused by headline? Readers of Friday’s Valley West zone section were greeted with a strange headline. It was supposed to say “Volunteer: Taylorsville man honored.” But it actually read: “Topic_label Dignissim wisi.”
Even those who are fluent in Latin could not recognize such a phrase — used as a placeholder as the designer laid out the page.
The headline appeared above a picture and story on dedicated Jordan River volunteer Adriaan Boogaard.
How could that happen?
According to Scott Murphy, the news editor who handles the zone sections, here’s how:
“During layout, a dummy version of the story was used to determine length. The headline was never replaced — even after the bad headline was found in page proofs. At least the story survived and made it into print.”
And, finally, an ending One angry reader sent this e-mail:
“I ended my Tribune subscription [last] week due to how the Tribune covered the election. I understand the opinion section is just that — an opinion. I do however expect to see an even number of both Right and Left writers.
“I don’t know why an ‘independent newspaper’ would stack its writing team in one direction. I also often see the opinion bleed over to the stories outside the opinion section. I believe print media is dying not to the Internet but to this type of one-sided opinionated reporting.
“As a non Mormon I bought the Tribune because I didn’t want this type of one sided reporting instead I got the same thing.”
When I look at the editorial page and the news pages, I see a paper with a moderate editorial stance and a wide variety of news and analysis from some of the best papers and syndicates in the country.
In addition, our local reporting has one aim: to bring to readers an accurate and complete report of what is happening in Utah.
I often get this kind of complaint from people who want the Tribune to take a stance to the right side of political thought. I do not think this will happen.
The Reader Advocate’s phone number is 801-257-8782. Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110. E-mail: reader.advocate@sltrib.com.
This week’s stats
71 People who think the new Weather page is better, but still object to the design of the national weather map. “It’s too hard to understand where it’s raining and snowing or sunny,” some readers say.
34 People who are annoyed that some stories are still ending with cut-off sentences. We are working on solving this problem in our publishing software. We thought it was solved, but it happened again Sunday.
