The dumbest Stuff or Herald headlines (& other news media)

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#2813158 15-Nov-2021 12:35

Technofreak:

Then they wouldn't have anything to tell you.

And that’s another thing that annoys me. When a reporter prefaces their report with “What I can tell you,……” If you can’t tell us, there is nothing to report.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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#2813234 15-Nov-2021 13:41

Dingbatt:

Technofreak:

Then they wouldn't have anything to tell you.

And that’s another thing that annoys me. When a reporter prefaces their report with “What I can tell you,……” If you can’t tell us, there is nothing to report.

It also makes the presumption that they are smarter/more knowledge than you are.

Just report the news FFS don't try and be an expert on stuff you really don't understand.

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#2813250 15-Nov-2021 13:58

eracode:

NZH today: "Ian Foster reveals what went wrong against Ireland".

Reveals? It wasn't really any secret, was it.

Sadly, "reveal" is a high-ranking Goggle SEO word. Throw that over-used term into your url, the page H1 headline, first sentence, repeat again in the first paragraph, once more in an H2 heading & use as an image description too - now the Goggle engine will love you & because you have moronically followed their rules, even though you have destroyed the readability of your content - will rank your page higher than one that doesn't use "reveal".

Grrrr.

compound

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#2814936 17-Nov-2021 22:45

Bound found in Clutha River believed to be missing Alexandra man

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/455958/bound-found-in-clutha-river-believed-to-be-missing-alexandra-man-wayne-hammond

Was he bound up or they were sure he was bound to be found?

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#2815078 18-Nov-2021 10:35

"The Manawatu Cricket Association has confirmed a man who attended his club training on Tuesday evening has [Covid]."

While it's probably true, that's hardly an authoritative source. Was it that hard to ask the MoH before publishing?

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#2815087 18-Nov-2021 10:55

Dingbatt:

Technofreak:

Then they wouldn't have anything to tell you.

And that’s another thing that annoys me. When a reporter prefaces their report with “What I can tell you,……” If you can’t tell us, there is nothing to report.

... and when those reporters cook up contrived puns and metaphors to go with the video in their report. Yes it's good now and then (and is sometimes clever) - but in every story, every night it becomes tedious. One News is particularly bad at this.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

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#2815673 19-Nov-2021 12:28

From the Radio New Zealand website this morning comes this clanger:

"He started asking around and found out there had been dozens of police call-outs - somewhere in the vicinity of eight - to the property."

@ any journalists / editors who happen to be reading this thread. Please, please quit. You're utterly useless, the whole lot of you. Give it up, it's time to let someone - anyone - else have a go.

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#2815675 19-Nov-2021 12:36

That doesn't actually seem too bad to me. There's a bit of poetic licence ("around 100" would be much more straightforward) but it still gets the point across.

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#2815681 19-Nov-2021 12:42

Behodar:
That doesn't actually seem too bad to me. There's a bit of poetic licence ("around 100" would be much more straightforward) but it still gets the point across.

Dozens - plural of dozen. As in multiples of 12. So at least 24 call outs. Poetic licence I would grant to an excess of 12, say 18 being 1.5 dozen. "Around 8" is not dozens of anything.

Uhmm, except dozen make sense?

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#2815684 19-Nov-2021 12:44

We seem to be interpreting things differently. You appear to be reading it as "around 8 callouts" and I'm reading "around 8 dozen callouts" (i.e. 96). Who knows which is correct...

mdooher

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#2815688 19-Nov-2021 12:50

Behodar:

We seem to be interpreting things differently. You appear to be reading it as "around 8 callouts" and I'm reading "around 8 dozen callouts" (i.e. 96). Who knows which is correct...

surprised they didn't write "..up to 1000"

Matthew

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#2815695 19-Nov-2021 13:09

Behodar:

We seem to be interpreting things differently. You appear to be reading it as "around 8 callouts" and I'm reading "around 8 dozen callouts" (i.e. 96). Who knows which is correct...

I'd be inclined to think they were meaning eight total. It's rare foo anyone to specify the number of dozens these days. Dozens is often used as an expression of many without any thought as to what a dozen actually is. Sadly I think if you were to ask some people how many items there are in a dozen I think you'd get a blank look or a stupid answer.

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#2815899 19-Nov-2021 20:49

1024kb: From the Radio New Zealand website this morning comes this clanger:

"He started asking around and found out there had been dozens of police call-outs - somewhere in the vicinity of eight - to the property."

@ any journalists / editors who happen to be reading this thread. Please, please quit. You're utterly useless, the whole lot of you. Give it up, it's time to let someone - anyone - else have a go.

The reporter is summarizing a response from an interview subject. Your problem is with the person who said it not the reporter.

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#2815962 19-Nov-2021 21:54

gzt:
1024kb: From the Radio New Zealand website this morning comes this clanger:

"He started asking around and found out there had been dozens of police call-outs - somewhere in the vicinity of eight - to the property."

@ any journalists / editors who happen to be reading this thread. Please, please quit. You're utterly useless, the whole lot of you. Give it up, it's time to let someone - anyone - else have a go.

The reporter is summarizing a response from an interview subject. Your problem is with the person who said it not the reporter.

I don't think so. The reporter has failed to write a sensible paragraph, they're the one in charge of the content, they wrote nonsense. Paraphrasing is not an excuse for poor reporting. Even if the interviewee had spouted such waffle directly, it's up to the reporter to filter the response so that the finished article makes sense. "Just let me clear this one up - tell me again how many calls were made - was it dozens as in 24 or 36, was it around 8 or was it 8 dozen as in around 100?"

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#2815968 19-Nov-2021 22:55

Possibly someone claimed there'd been dozens of callouts but the actual number was only 8. We have a problem locally with noisy motocross bikes, people complain to each other but the Police log typically shows only 1 complaint.

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