Thursday, April 28, 2011

Hey, you're a newspaper not a ticker....

The current Top 3 news stories on USA TODAY:

"Dozens of tornadoes kill 215 in in South."

"Dozens of tornadoes kill more than 250 in South."

"Dozens of tornadoes kill up nearly 250 in South."

As I was writing this, one of them changed to "nearly 270."

3 comments:

H. Bruce Miller said...

They're not just a newspaper, they're a newspaper with a Website. They're trying to keep their Website current. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Back in the old days, newspapers (in big cities anyway) would put out extras every hour or so. But that was when street sales were the lion's share of their revenue. Hasn't been that way for many decades.

Duncan McGeary said...

In the immortal words of Kenny Rogers, "you don't do the countin' til the countin' is done."

I don't mind them having a general total "hundred", "Dozens", it's the ridiculous and misleading exactness of the numbers that bug me.

I expect newspapers, even online newspapers, to have authority, to be the 'record', as it were.

So, like WHEN am I supposed to believe the number. When will they be done?

I can watch T.V. anchors scramble around with insufficient information and even wrong information, but when I turn to a newspaper, I want it to be credible.

Otherwise, what good are they?

If I want gossip and rumor, I have all the rest of the internet to turn to.

Duncan McGeary said...

In a world of constantly shifting information, I'd like someone to take on the task of having accurate and final totals. (Of course, within reason.)