Perhaps the headline should be...

[morganminstrel]

CNN Editors unaware of the difference between words "ancestor" and "descendant"

Man, this kind of thing really gets my goat. I know the internet's a fast moving place, 24 hour news cycle and all that, but this is really shoddy editorial work.

UPDATE: Sent a comment to cnn.com. I'll post any reply they send me. (No, I don't remember exactly what I said in the comment, although I did end it with the hope that their fact checking was better than their headline writing. Heh.)

UPDATE THE SECOND: CNN has fixed the mistake. For the record, the original headline was "Study: House cat ancestor of Middle Eastern wildcat." It has now been changed to "Study: Housecat descendant of Middle Eastern wildcat."

I like to think that I might have had something to do with that...li'l old me, influencing the content provided by a multimillion dollar corporation.... ;-)

Comments

Word Nerd!

[ketina.livejournal.com]

You got like a perfect score on your SAT verbal, didn't you?

Re: Word Nerd!

[morganminstrel.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't. And it'd be different if the editors were using synonyms correctly, but they're mixing up words that mean exactly the opposite thing. This isn't being picky, this is an example of news editors not knowing English.

Sorry, I know you were joking, but if they're screwing stupid stuff like this up, imagine what they're doing to real news?

Re: Word Nerd!

[morganminstrel.livejournal.com]

The editor is responsible for the content that appears on the website. That includes headlines that are attached to AP stories. (Attached by CNN, I'll add. The original AP story had a different headline.) Headlines and articles should be vetted by any competent editor. Again, if they make errors in trivial stories, that can show the care they take when handling their content in general.

So, no. Exact same chap in responsible position. It's more like "Hey, the menu says 'beef stew' when you served me beef soup!" Shouldn't I blame the person in charge of writing/setting out the menus? (And, honest-to-god, I don't get your analogy at all...)

Re: Word Nerd!

[morganminstrel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but errors undermine credibility for a news site (or any factual writing, really). Small mistakes often point to big mistakes, especially in the journalism field, and can be especially damaging in the 24 hour news field. (Look at the milage the Daily Show gets out of it.)

It doesn't matter who actually does it; when it's done, someone has to take responsibility for it. That's ultimately the person who was supposed to be editing the damn thing, regardless of who did the ground work. What you seem to be essentially saying is that because the actual work was done by a grunt, CNN isn't responsible for the content. That isn't how journalism is supposed to work. And if it's a case of no one watching what's being put out, then yes, I think it's possible that problems go a bit deeper than just the guy who writes the headlines. It's perception and accountability. To put it in your terms, If there's a problem with the UI and a product goes out, then the person who signed off on the project has to bear responsibility. If he signed off on the security, who's to say that he didn't screw that up too? (He probably didn't, but there's now the perception that he could have.) It's a bad analogy, but journalism is also considerably different than software, so it's all a bad analogy. ;-)

Re: Word Nerd!

[morganminstrel.livejournal.com]

So, basically anything I read/see on CNN has no actual credibility or quality control?

Gotcha. I'll keep that in mind.

And...

[ronelyn.livejournal.com]

...they misspelled "ancestry" in the caption of the top-left photo. :)


Actually, looks like they might have fixed it. Either that or I'm just missing it.

Re: And...

[morganminstrel.livejournal.com]

They did fix it. Heh. I wonder if my comment had anything to do with it or if some higher up looked at the thing and said, "What the--" :-)