Controversial: Fatal Decisions

Yes, we had fatals. Yes, they were over basic things.

First, two people did not turn in the assignment at all. The worst thing we can do in journalism -- even worse than getting a fatal -- is to blow off an assignment. A newspaper can't go to print with blank spots in the pages, and a 30-minute newscast can't to to air without content that fills up all 30 minutes. That means in the media business, you can never miss a deadline.



In journalism, turning in something, anything that meets the minimum standard is critical. You can produce an absolute piece of crap and as long as it's turned in, an editor can still work with it and make it acceptable to use on air or online or in print by his or her deadline. 

An editor can't work with nothing. And someone who turns in nothing won't have a job for very long. Trust me, once I saw someone totally brain-freeze and fail to file anything on deadline on a college basketball game once. And it did happen just once,because the boss told her not to bother coming back to the newsroom; she'd have her final paycheck mailed to her, and she should just have her laptop shipped to work in the same way.

It's that serious. We have to start building good habits now. The penalty for you is a shitty grade, which stings. But I'd rather have you learn a painful lesson now, when the consequence is just a bruised ego. Not an ended career.

The rest of the fatals were more run-of-the-mill. Like the spelling of a name. We spelled the last name of Jane Tribitt as Tribbit, with too many B's and too few T's.

We also spelled the first name of Stuard Adler as Stuart. I know the former is an uncommon spelling, and the latter is more common. But the info we were given was that it was oddly-spelled, and you were given no reason to think otherwise.

And, misspelling a word in quote. Where Hugh Baker said "games," we said just "game," with the S at the end missing. 

From the syllabus:

Inaccurate information, misspelling a proper name, a misquotation or an error that changes the meaning of a story automatically drops a grade to amaximum of 1.0 (e.g., President Barack Obamma or Department of Transport).

Also, the latter fatal is an example of when spell check won't help you.

That's because in that case, the misspelled word created an unintended but correctly-spelled word. Spell check doesn't know you meant to write games. All it knows is game is spelled right. So it says you're okay, when you're not.

We can use spell check as a complement to -- but not a substitute for -- re-reading our work, from start to finish, and checking facts and figures and names and spellings line-by-line and word-by-word, with our own eyeballs.

Yes, it's harsh when one fact fatal is an automatic 1.0 on the assignment, no matter how well we do on everything else in an assignment. (Still, it's not as harsh as missing deadline or failing to turn in an assignment, which is a 0.0.)

But that's because journalism isn't about writing; it's about getting it right. Especially what people tell us.

That's not the only scenario where spell check can trip you up. If you don't pay careful enough attention, spell check can also misspell names for you!

For example, let's say you write the name Jane Tribitt. Tribitt is a name, but it's not a word that's in the dictionary. So, spell check will probably flag Tribitt and suggest a change.

If you blindly click "okay" on everything spell check suggests that you change, odds are it'll change a name like Tribitt. Dunno if that happened with Stuard/Stuart, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

Spell check is a helpful tool to use. But it's not perfect. Let's not rely on it like it is.