I've been seeing a lot of misspelling, poor grammar and other very basic mistakes in newspaper stories from all over. Makes me wonder if the newspapers can't afford spell check anymore.
All the hallmarks of a dying industry. As circulation drops, and Craigslist gutted their want-ad profits, the newspapers have had to offer buy-outs to the older staff that actually... you know,
had journalistic skills. And I think there's a downward selection pressure working on the newspapers too.
The writing's been on the wall over their fate for the better part of a decade now. So that means there's now been 1 or even 2 cohorts of college graduates who, knowing what was happening, went for a career in print journalism
anyway.
So I think there's some truth to the idea that anyone smart enough to be a good journalist is by definition also smart enough to not be a (print) journalist these days.
Other symptoms of this are the incidents of printing CCW or gun-license maps or databases, behind the equally dubious and thin veil of "the public's right to know" is the desperation that "We need to sell papers!"
BTW Monkeyleg, were you aware that the Eugene Kane of the Journal Sentinel got demoted to working the city beat, then later in October took a buyout? I guess times are tough and they can't afford a full time race baiter anymore.
Just yesterday I was accosted at Pick 'N Save by the sales-drones working the Journal Sentinel kiosk they set up in the supermarket every few weeks, trying to hand out free papers. (Which I'm sure counts towards their circulation numbers... I bet they try to count the bottom of every parakeet cage in the Milwaukee metro too.) I declined the paper, and told them I thought institutions in decline should have the dignity to give up at some point. They went
then
...
