Here's a look at the front page of today's Hindustan Times, Delhi edition.
Today's lead (China quietly builds a barrage on Sutlej), like yesterday's, is more or less clean. The copy itself is fine, but the story has a major loophole — it does not have a source. That, any good reporter will tell you, is a cardinal sin. The story apparently is based on some satellite images, but nowhere in the copy are HT's readers told what is the source of these images.
Officials of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) have refused to comment on the existence of the barrage across the Zada gorge. So can we assume that MEA did not hand over these pictures to the newspaper? Who took these pictures? Can the story be attributed to anyone?
The third para starts off:
The satellite images of the gorge, which is also the access point to the ancient Toling monastery and Tsaparang (capital of the ancient Guge kingdom), show the barrage distinctly. Though the images suggest work on the barrage has been completed, it could not be confirmed. China has not sought publicity for it, as it had done for the Three Gorges Dam.
The satellite would suggest that the images have been mentioned earlier in the copy, but they haven't. The definite article should have been dropped; just as it was in the Web version of the story.
The next story (2008: India plans a space shuttle odyssey) is relatively less clean. A few errors in the intro:
In the age of use and throw, Indian space scientists are planning something different — a reusable launch vehicle (RLV). It will speed into space like a rocket but will return to runway like an aircraft. It will be the marriage of rocket and aircraft technologies. In mundane terms, it will dramatically cut the cost of taking a payload to a tenth of what it is now.
Firstly, use-and-throw should have been hypenated like this.
The indefinite article has been dropped before runway. The Web version correctly says a runway.
The last sentence of the intro is an oxymoron. Mundane means something which is anything but exciting. So how could the costs be cut dramatically? The desk probably wanted to mean "in simple terms" or something like that. No, not probably; make that in all likelihood.
There are some other minor errors, but those can pass.
The story on the US House committee vote (It's 16-2 for N-Bill in Senate) has a billing problem again. It is Bill in the header, and bill in main body.
