Debritz.net

A journalistic colleague from Shanghai sent me this quote from former Scotland and Manchester United manager, Tommy Docherty:

"I've always said there is a place for the press, but they haven't dug it yet."

Drum roll, please ... I'm journalism.co.uk's "Freelancer of the Fortnight". It's not quite an Oscar, but hopefully it will help me get some more work in Britain. Read all about it here.

... and smh.com.au presumably has not time for conventional English usage.
(Usual glass house disclaimer applies.)

The BBC's Watchdog consumer affairs program polled its viewers about their likes and dislikes when it came to flying. The results were mixed - British Airways and EasyJet were both among the favourite and least favourite airlines - but one thing caught my attention. People say they dislike hidden fees. I know what they've mean - I've just booked some UK flights online, and the quoted price was just the beginning. My 69 pound fare became nearly 90 pounds once taxes, insurance and hold-baggage fees were added along the way. Time for a law that says the quoted price should be the total.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Ali Fauzi headed to the prison island of Nusakambangan by boat about 5.30am Sydney time to oversee the religious rights on the bodies.

A colleague notes an Associated Press story uses the non-word "anxiousness".

If you want a compelling argument in favour of a free and vigorous press (not to mention an alert political opposition), read here about the latest food scandal in China. Maggots in oranges follow poison in milk - and, yet again, the truth was covered-up for more than a month. Roll on the days when China's journalists are free and courageous enough to print the truth in a timely manner, and its citizens don't have to learn what's really going on through the foreign media.

Is this discriminatory, or is it jargon I don't understand? An online job advertisement states:

Our client a contract publishing agency based in central London is looking for a mid-weight art director.

James Blunt, a man who to my knowledge has never worked as a journalist, is to guest edit the international edition of the freesheet Metro. Maybe I should write to his management to see if I can perform in his place on his next tour.

This is the first line of a regular email I get from the UK Daily Mail:

Surely an email from a newspaper should be in plain English. Why have "issues" when they really mean problems?

The folks at the Sydney Morning Herald's online edition seem to have discovered a new word, "fatel". Perhaps it's no coincidence that the SMH has just made many of its sub-editors redundant.

I guess it's called getting a fresh angle on a story everybody already knows about .. The Daily Mirror reveals on its front page that the deal to bail-out Britain's banks to the tune of 500 billion pounds was sealed over a takeaway curry ordered by Chancellor Alistair Darling. Hence, it's the "balti bail-out".

Stock in Apple computers briefly plunged 5.4 per cent after CNN broadcast a false report that the company's CEO, Steve Jobs, had had a heart attack. The information came from a "citizen journalist" - i.e. somebody with no training and no ethical duty to report the truth. Using enthusiastic amateurs may cost nothing, but you get what you pay for.
PS: My "Who needs subs?" series from a few weeks ago has been collated on one page here.

Newspaper managers around the world are cutting costs by eliminating the jobs of sub-editors, also known as copy editors. The thinking is that reporters can file their copy directly into "news holes" on the pages. It sounds like a good idea - but if that had been the case in the past, these howlers (collected by me and some of my colleagues) would have made it into print:

"... running up and down the halls of the southside watering hole, playing backyard cricket in its upstairs hallways."

Tonight's campaign launch, which shows Mr Potter traipsing to his rival's Dallas headquarters, delivering his monologue from a windy rooftop in the Texan capital ... [Dallas is not the capital of Texas.]

But opposition council spokesman Campbell Newman ... [At the time Newman was the Liberal mayoral candidate.]

"We have taken over the building next store ..." [Or next door, perhaps.]

"... he's just absolutely wrapped." [In plastic?]

"the mentally insane"

Decked out as Sandy and Danny from the musical Greece, ...

... camped out under the stars with visitors from as far away as Chilli, Africa and China.

The collapse of Australia's newest airline, business-class carrier OzJet, was never going to work, analysts said today. [Actually, the collapse worked quite well.]

"I'm equally happy in the classical and contemporary repertoire, maybe the classical has a slight edge, but I'm so looking forward to the Brisbane premiere of Murphy's Swan Lake with its glorious Tchaikovsky music after four months off with hip surgery". [What?]

Feelings over football run high in Glasgow. It's a city divided between supporters of Celtic and Rangers, and it's a serious business. So serious, in fact, that the soapie Coronation Street has changed its script after complaints from Rangers fans. The producers received "dozens" of negative comments from north of the border when Tony Gordon, a Scottish character in the Manchester-set series, said: "I could no more be interested in Rosie Webster than I could support Glasgow Rangers." A future, similar comment has now been axed.

A job advertisement for a deputy chief sub-editor lists among the duties and responsibilities of the role:

+ Assisting the chief sub-editor to ensure that entity extraction is completed to the highest possible standard.

I'm not sure what that means, but perhaps it's a reference to getting your finger out.

Hot Fuzz star Simon Pegg has apparently called The Office and Extras star Ricky Gervais a "fat idiot" in a radio interview. Something about the Daily Mail's report caught my eye. It says:

Unlike most public feuds between celebrities, Simon's outburst - aired on the Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott show on Heart FM - does not follow a personal attack from Gervais.

Does this mean Ricky Gervais starts almost all celebrity feuds? He should be stopped.

From dailytelegraph.com.au:

Er, that'd be Heath ...

Place names present a challenge to those of us who work with words for a living. In English, we often have names for places that differ from the names used by the people who actually live there - and there are are some people who believe we should speak and write like the locals. Until now, I wouldn't have thought the folks at the British Daily Mail were among them. I'm assuming, then, that whoever handled this picture didn't know that Munchen (which really should carry an umlaut on the U) is better known to English readers as Munich.

I know some people argue otherwise, but when I was a cadet journalist the style book insisted that a collision can only occur between two moving objects. That's why this brisbanetimes.com.au headline amused me:

The very thought of an all-you-can-eat restaurant barrelling down the road has made my day.
PS: Joking aside, I hope the woman involved is OK.