IT would be remiss of this publication to point out the functions of the local paper without acknowledging the other side of the coin.
Last week saw a number of typos make their way onto the front page of The Bunyip, much to the dismay of the editorial team come Wednesday morning.
The blame lays squarely at the feet of the editor in that instance – it’s the stuff you think about on Tuesday evening after there’s nothing you can do to fix it.
Was that pointer right? Did we capitalise State Government? Are the captions on the right photos?
As is often the case, fun was poked on social media following the release of the front page, and rightly so.
As the occupant of the “big chair” it is up to the editor to ensure grammatical standards are adhered to at all costs, and when that doesn’t happen, the community is right to hold its paper to account, just as the paper holds the community to account.
My only hope is that in future cases, a thought can be spared for the story.
Things get missed in the heat of the moment and mistakes can happen – and we need to continually work to avoid that – but that should not detract from the contents of the story itself.
To label something as poor journalism purely down to a grammatical misstep is to dismiss a large chunk of what news reporting is.
But nevertheless, we will continue to strive for grammatical excellance. Sorry, excellence.
