Good, Bad, and Ugly
Reader reaction to Reuters news
The wrong word…
Sheriff officers search house-to-house as they look for survivors or those who may of been killed after a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Missouri May 23, 2011. At least 89 people have died in a monster tornado that left a path of destruction nearly a mile wide through the heart of of the city and directly hit the small Midwestern city’s main hospital. REUTERS
Looking at the pictures of the tornado destruction in Joplin, MO, I noticed several captions. Could you please inform your writer that “have” is a verb but “of” is not. “Of” is a preposition in case they no longer teach that in journalism school.
His photo caption stating that many “… may of been killed…” is a disgusting example of the decline in journalistic standards which permeates the news media these days.
I can’t believe your writer used this word in this manner, and I find it even more difficult to believe that some other editor or reviewer let this slide by as if this is perfectly normal usage.
If this is standard practice at Reuters, then my respect for this news service has certainly been diminished.
V.C.H.
Radiation anxiety story
Radiation anxiety grows in disaster-struck Japan
By Shinichi Saoshiro and Kiyoshi Takenaka
TOKYO, March 22 (Reuters) – Global anxiety rose over radiation from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant even as engineers won ground in their battle to avert disaster from the world’s worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl.
This was the best overall piece I have seen anywhere on the situation, incorporating important items posted in the news elsewhere that I had seen, to give a sense of what is really true and what is rumour.
Congrats to the authors.
Will
Thanks for noticing: GBU Editor
Offensive headline?
Felix Salmon’s blog is a low for Reuters.
I have no problem with his point or content – that is his choice to make. But your choice to allow a sensationalized title, “Don’t Donate Money to Japan” is cheap attention grabbing at its best.
Myself and my coworkers who just saw this are going to go elsewhere for our news and opinions.
T.T.
First, as a Japanese citizen, I felt as if I was hit on my head with a frying pan as I was seeing the title.
I felt that Felix’s article was simply ignorant, insensitive, and too subjective.
I wonder how many people saw the headline, but didn’t read the actual posting.
Oil spill victims?
Over 300 dead birds are likely Gulf spill victims
LOS ANGELES, May 24 (Reuters) – More than 300 sea birds, nearly 200 turtles and 19 dolphins have been found dead along the U.S. Gulf Coast during the first five weeks of BP’s huge oil spill off Louisiana, wildlife officials reported on Monday.
When did birds start becoming victims? They’re birds, not humans. You people are getting wackier every day.
A. B.
I’m fine with using that word. They sure look like victims to me: GBU Editor
An oil soaked brown pelican is prepped before being bathed at Fort Jackson Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Buras, Louisiana, May 15, 2010. REUTERS/Hans Deryk
To A.B. — You know what’s wacky? People who are so far removed from reality that they believe they can exist outside the ecosystem.
When will a majority realize we’re all in this together? How many huge man-made disasters will it take to shake you shrink-wrapped, anti-nature rubes out of your denial? I wish you’d all pile into space shuttles and set up a sterile station on the moon where you wouldn’t have to worry about what’s a victim and what’s not.
When humans turn into machines that don’t rely on clean air, clean water & a sustainable food-chain, then we can scoff at the mass annihilation of our fellow living organisms. Until then, it’s a matter of watching the pyramid crumble beneath our feet.
Salvaging food?
Bodies pile up after Haiti quake; aid jams airport
Looters swarmed a broken supermarket in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince, carrying out electronics and bags of rice unchallenged. Others siphoned gasoline from a wrecked tanker.
It would be more humane if you would have written, “Starving, injured and traumatized victims of the earthquake peacefully salvaged food and electronics from a (partially?) collapsed supermarket (what is a broken supermarket?). Others took the opportunity to collect fuel from a wrecked tanker.”
Why would you chose such language as “looters swarmed” in a situation where thirsty, starving, injured, homeless and grieving people were reacting to a catastrophic situation (more dire than their regular daily lives) in hopes of feeding themselves and obtaining goods that could later be sold to feed, clothe and house their families and neighbors?
Should they leave the food and other goods there to rot or rust? Is it necessary to try and make victims appear lawless? SHAME ON YOU! How low will you go?
McKnight
Alternately, could have gone with something like “earthquake survivors” and say they “took” food, if you wanted a middle ground between “look at these criminals” and “look at these people singing kum ba ya.” Would agree though that electronics counts as looting.
Hijacked planes on September 11
U.S. says al Qaeda-linked man tries to blow up plane
It also is the latest in a string of terrorism-related plots in the United States over the past few months. Al Qaeda militants carried out the September11, 2001, attacks in the United States in which three passenger planes were hijacked.
I believe that FOUR planes were hijacked on September 11, 2001, not three. Please fact check.
Liz U.
Can you please explain to me how only 3 planes were hijacked on September 11, 2001? I am sure the families of the passengers and crew on Flight 93 that crashed in PA would like to know how that plane was NOT hijacked. Nice to try and rewrite history but he will have to wait a few more decades until all of the public who witnessed it die.
H.R.
Nobody is trying to “rewrite history.” That was a bad mistake made by us in a rapidly developing story. We fixed it, but not before a number of readers noticed: GBU Editor
Wow people are crazy. I bet they feel really cool correcting the news on something that was an obvious mistake.
Incident in The Netherlands
You report dozens of roadside bombings in Iraq or Afghanistan; yet if something terrible happens with one of your biggest allies, Holland, on one of their biggest holidays: Queen’s Birthday, you report nothing…
B. S.
Not guilty. We reported plenty. We had evolving text, photos, video and slideshows about that story all day long.
The bad news was that unfortunately, our search engine offered readers very little help in finding the story, and needs to be improved: GBU Editor
I would respectfully suggest that you proof read all articles prior to posting to the internet. Spelling and proper use of English, (American or UK), is terrible.
Vaccine, or no vaccine?
World closer to swine flu pandemic
Worldwide, seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people in an average year but the new strain worries experts because it spreads rapidly between humans and there is vaccine for it.
You have several copy errors in this article the most significant of which is where you mean to say …thereis NO vaccine for it.”
J.M.
We corrected that error soon after the story was issued on our wires, but unfortunately the correction did not make it to our reuters.com home page for several hours: GBU Editor
A couple wearing masks wait for their relatives to arrive from Mexico at Sao Paulo’s international airport, April 27, 2009. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a “public health emergency of international concern” over an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
Flu-like symptoms?
Swine flu epidemic fear grows, world on alert
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Governments around the world rushed on Sunday to check the spread of a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected around a dozen in the United States.
Mexicans huddled in their homes while U.S. hospitals tracked patients with flu symptoms and other countries imposed health checks at airports as the World Health Organization warned the virus had the potential to become a pandemic.
In New Zealand, 10 pupils from an Auckland school party that had returned from Mexico were being treated for influenza symptoms…
Countries across Asia, which have had to grapple with deadly viruses like H5N1 bird flu and SARS in recent years, snapped into action. At airports and other border checkpoints in Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, officials screened travelers for any flu-like symptoms.
Argentina declared a health alert, requiring anyone arriving on flights from Mexico to advise if they had flu-like symptoms.
In France, two people returning from Mexico who had flu-like symptoms were being tested…
It’s worth keeping things in perspective. Pandemic could get serious, but let’s not lose our heads over every little bit of news that comes out about flu.For more see my blog:tomtommytom.blogspot.com
Not what we meant…
Montana plane crash kills 17, including children
The plane crashed about 500 feet from the airport while attempting to land and burst into flames.
Unfortunately, the wording of this paragraph indicates that the pilot was successful in his goal of, ‘attempting to land and burst into flames.’
Michael H.
Yikes. That sentence needed some help: GBU Editor
Flames and billowing smoke rise after a single-engine private passenger plane crashed into a cemetery, on approach to an airport in Butte, Montana, killing 17 people, March 22, 2009.
REUTERS/Photo courtesy of the Montana Standard/Martha Guidoni/Handout
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