E-Portfollio - Editing Detective

The trouble with typos is that it is so easy to make them, and what is worse is that once the mistake is made it can be harder for a proofreader to pick them up. The proofreader has to be on the ball in order to find mistakes like the one in the picture. If there had been actual thorough proofreading the word 'dollars' would not have been spelled 'dallors.'

As bad as missing a mistake like that is, it is even worse in the news room. Inaccuracy causes confusion; nothing good ever comes of it. An example of this is from a recent Intercamp article where a quote should have received more attention: “'I think they realized their decision was potentially short-sighted and wasn’t planned out,' said Holmgren." The problem is that Holmgren was not introduced before the quote was used. This means that the reader has no clue who Holmgren is, let alone Holmgren's gender. This was not the only mistake in this article: "MacEwan will use funds from reserves to fund operations of the aquatics facility until June 30, 2011. Money from MacEwan’s reserve fund will be used to keep the pool open until June 2011." These sentences both appeared one right after the other, and they both mean the exact same thing. The reporter repeats the fact right after it was just stated in almost the exact same wording. This could have been avoided. It's just like Katrine wrote: "Both the journalist and the editor carry a great responsibility on their shoulders when it comes to editing work for their newspaper."