Here's a look at the front page of today's Times of India, Delhi edition. Today's lead has the same fault about inverted commas as it was with yesterday's anchor. Single quotes are used for quotations within quotations. Elsewhere, even if it is a phrase or just a word, double quotes are used. Incorrect use around artificial in the intro:
Even as J&K governor S K Sinha instituted an inquiry on Thursday into the 'artificial' shivling scandal at the Amarnath shrine, TOI has obtained strong evidence to suggest that the governor's office itself played a role in manufacturing a shivling that has outraged thousands of devotees.
Correct use around urgently in the second para:
On May 20, Raj Bhavan development commissioner I C Jandial shot off letters to dry ice manufacturers in Delhi seeking to "urgently" procure tonnes of ice and deliver it in thermocol packaging at Baltal, near Sonamarg, just 13 km from the Amarnath shrine.
Now, here is something I enjoy taking people apart over:
Only four days earlier, on May 16, Sinha — who is the ex-officio chairman of Shri Amarnath Ji Shrine Board — had personally gone to the shrine to oversee preparations for the yatra. Did he discover that the natural shivling had not formed this year? And then decide to make an artificial shivling instead?
Ex officio is NOT written as ex-officio or exofficio. It is NOT one word, but two separate words. Ex officio is a Latin phrase meaning someone being included or allowed because of the person's job, position, or rank. The confusion arises because of the rampant abuse of the prefix ex- in daily usage. Ex- means someone or something who/which is no longer what s/he or it was earlier. The ex of the Latin phrase means "from" or "out of". Your ex-boyfriend is a guy who is no longer your boyfriend, but ex-officio is not a person is a former officio. ;) The fourth para has another bloomer:
When the shivling scandal was broken by TOI on June 18, board CEO Arun Kumar had claimed some "langarwallas had entered the holy cave and tried to manufacture the shivling." Later, the governor clarified he had nothing to do with the ill-conceived project that has caused an uproar among devotees.
Journalists don't break scandals. They either break stories about scandals, or they break stories which subsequently become scandals. The dig in the fifth para does not stand:
Someone was obviously being economical with the truth. For, Jandial's letter (see facsimile) shows the Shri Amarnath Ji Shrine Board was desperately seeking to procure dry ice. As this ice was to be delivered to the closest motorable point from the Amarnath, it also suggests that the ice was possibly intended for manufacturing an artificial shivling.
No one is economical with the truth. You either hide the truth or try to subvert it. You may be economical with words, but I don't think the glib J&K Governor was being mingy with words. Yes, the dig doesn't stand by itself. Someone was obviously try to add colour to the copy. There is ample scope of adding colour to sports copies as in the top three-column on the World Cup (Final before final), but one has to do it with caution. We are told:
They last met in a World Cup match 16 years ago. Then, in an unappetising final, a late penalty by Andreas Brehme gave Germany a 1-0 revenge for the 3-2 loss suffered against Maradona's men in Mexico four years ago.
An unappetising final? Well, food is not appetising in itself. You have an appetiser to whet your appetite for a meal. The final could not have been an appetiser, and hence the negative unappetising is wrong usage of a wrong adjective. Secondly, you need to be careful with scores if you are playing around with a sports copy. Germany won 1-0 in 1990, but had lost 2-3 in 1986. Moreover, the first ago is correct, the second is not. The adverb ago is used to express something in the past and this is done to show how far something in the past happened w.r.t the present. So, the loss in Mexico four years ago would mean Germany was defeated by Argentina in 2002. The copy should have mentioned either the year i.e. 1986, or said four years earlier. The second is correct, but still leaves some room for confusion. Problem with years in the third para:
Several times, Cup quarterfinals have provided the most memorable contests: Brazil-France in 1986, England-Cameroon (1990), Brazil-Holland ('94), Brazil-Denmark ('98).
Inconsistent use in typing out the years. As well as in referring to the years. All very obvious. The second sentence of the same para has a groaner:
This match — along with the Saturday night Brazil-France game — carries the delicious promise of shaping into one of those eternal talking points among football lovers.
Delicious promise? I can understand the match promises to be one helluva feast for football lovers, but delicious? Spare us your colour, please. Down to the six column story on the meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC lashes out, tells govt to get its act together on rising prices). Look at the intro:
Fear of being trapped in a pincer between the Left and opposition BJP over rising prices saw a concerned Congress Working Committee on Thursday evening issue a firm "get-your-act-together" fiat to government to swiftly rein in spiralling prices and defuse growing public discontent.
Any intro that runs into 40+ words makes for a bad copy. Now, coming to the colour bit. A pincer is a tool which has two crossed pieces of metal. You are not trapped between these two pieces the way you can be trapped between the devil and the deep sea. Being trapped and being caught (by someone) do not mean the same thing. The metaphor here does not come through. The next para smacks of insensitivity on part of the desk:
The urgent tone was set by Congress president Sonia Gandhi herself when she noted that the common man was suffering due to the price rise.
Fair enough. What about the common woman? Is she having a ball? A whale of a time? Why do people talk only of the common man? Gender-inclusive language is simply not acceptable. It is just as cruel a joke on readers as is the one about a woman-ruled Congress talking about its aam aadmi policies. Third para:
While Gandhi then left it for others to make the point, the mood at the hugely attended meeting was quite evidently impatient and concerned.
How big is the CWC that a meeting of the committee can command such a huge turnout? The fact that TOI has a "drop the" tendency is evident from this copy. The definite article has been dropped as many as six times. A redundant pronoun in the second last para:
There was also a direct attack on the food secretary for "messing up" food exports in what seemed to be a thinly-disguised attack on food minister Sharad Pawar himself.
Himself is not needed here. Pawar finds no mention in the story otherwise, and is not important to the copy. The way you need to be careful with football scores, you need to be as precise with the way you mention votes. No, not votes in general elections, but like the US House committee vote (Senate panel OKs nuke bill 16-2):
Feingold's amendment that the US president should make a determination that assistance to India was only in the civil sector went down 13-5, but Barrack Obama’s contention that US should not only stop nuclear cooperation but also persuade other countries to do so was carried unanimously, as was Lincoln Chafee's amendment that all cooperation with India should conform to Article 1 of the NPT.
The first amendment was defeated, and the scoreline should have been 5-13 and not as rendered. Secondly, a 64-word sentence with two commas can only be a foggy one. Otherwise, the copy on the whole has a billing problem. It is bill in the header, and Bill in main body. The adjacent single colum (Cant't handle quota hike next year: IIMs) has one minor error:
The directors who met twice — in Chennai and Bangalore — on the quota issue have told Samuel Paul, chairman of the core group on management institutions, that it would be unrealistic to launch full-scale reservation for OBCs from next June.
You may launch the policy, but launching reservations? The anchor (Second chance: Cut-offs dip in DU science courses), finally. Inconsistency in the second para:
While SRCC remained the only college which did not come out with a second list, the "closed" list for some courses also bore many colleges far less high-profile than that — Economics (H) in ARSD, PGDAV and Motilal Nehru (including the evening college), Political Science (H) in S P Mukherjee, Mathematics (Hons) in Dyal Singh and Computer Science (H) in Kalindi.
You have Hons for maths, but H for the others. The Web version was consistent. Info gap in the next:
As expected, Ramjas, which has managed to notch up just two admissions for the 40 Chemistry (H) seats recorded one of the largest dips in any course, counterbalanced by neighbour Kirori Mal's lowering of the BA (Mathematics) cut-off to 89.99% from 90% in the first list.
This "largest dip" should have been elaborated, the way the "counterbalance" has been mentioned.
