Illiteracy in Broadcast News

[SantaMufasa]

I am always amazed to see both print and broadcast-media news/"journalism" outlets produce even the most elementary grammatical errors.

Just now, on CNN's Headline News network broadcast, two examples of blatant illiteracy occurred just now within moments of one another:[ul][li]In Chicago, neighbors were repairing potholes in the street because (as the caption read), "The City was taking to long to fill potholes."[/li][li]Talking-head anchor, Christi Paul, reporting on Easter services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem pronounced the name of the site as "The Church of the Holy Seh-pul'-chur" versus "The church of the Holy Sep'-ul-ker".[/li][/ul]You would think that a national broadcast-news-reporting agency could still afford to pay for editors and pronunciation monitors.


Any other blatant goofs that you have witnessed in the news?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]
“Beware of those that seek to protect you from harm or risk. The cost will be your freedoms and your liberty.”

 

[PaulBricker]

Talking-head anchor

such a sad fact.

She'll have lots of chances to get it right the second or third or fourth or .......forty-fourth time the piece is repeated. Or not.

Loved the Alder piece. Gave it all the stars I could.

Paul

 

[KornGeek]

Now, when you say "the caption read", are you referring to the closed-captioning or the news captions that are an official part of the broadcast?

If it's the closed-captioning, I tend to cut them some slack because they are having to type out what they hear and may not have the time to fully process it. Thus "to" and "too" are easy to mix-up, and they likely aren't "to" concerned about it.


Not exactly illeteracy, but I saw an interesting headline on Yahoo today:
"Doctor Who Operated on Kanye's Mom Loses License"
I couldn't help wondering why Dr. Who was performing surgery on Kanye's mother.

 

[Jomama46]

Not to take away from your point Korn but I think the closed captions are using "text-to-speech" technology. All of the tvs in the gym use closed captions so unless you're listening with earphones, the captions are a riot.

Jomama

 

[SantaMufasa]

...are you referring to the closed-captioning or the news captions that are an official part of the broadcast?

Good question, KG. I, too, cut plenty of slack for the machine-interpretted closed captioning, but this grammatical faux pas was part of the human-generated "official" part of the broadcast.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]
“Beware of those that seek to protect you from harm or risk. The cost will be your freedoms and your liberty.”

 

[BJCooperIT]

Black and Gus


[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~ George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant Developer/Analyst Oracle, Forms, Reports & PL/SQL (Windows)

 

[flapeyre]

Darn, I thought they were Whole Steens.

-- Francis
I'd like to change the world, but I can't find the source code.

 

[GSCaupling]

Nah, those were Playboy cows. "Heffers" I think they're called.

GS

[small][navy]**********************^*********************
I always know where people are going to sit. I'm chairvoyant.[/navy][/small]

 

[flapeyre]

Hefners?

Moo.

-- Francis
I'd like to change the world, but I can't find the source code.

 

[kjv1611]

Just now, on CNN's Headline News network broadcast, two examples of blatant illiteracy occurred just now within moments of one another:

I dunno, seems there's something wrong just right thar!

"Just now... just now...." - Isn't that sort of extra-over repetitive?

Aint it, aint it?

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[GSCaupling]

[small][navy]**********************^*********************
I always know where people are going to sit. I'm chairvoyant.[/navy][/small]

 

[SantaMufasa]

Just now, on CNN's Headline News network broadcast, two examples of blatant illiteracy occurred just now within moments of one another:

...Isn't that sort of extra-over repetitive?

Possibly, but required construction by CNN's Department of Redundancy Department. <grin>

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]
“Beware of those that seek to protect you from harm or risk. The cost will be your freedoms and your liberty.”

 

[GwydionM]

For some examples of really bad captioning, see Flickr - Captions. Some are bad translations, some must come from speech recognition software. Some are amateur humour.

------------------------------
An old man who lives in the UK