Deep in the heart of Texas: Anna Nicole, Houston Chronicle to compete in spelling be

March 29th, 2007 → 11:06 am @

On Wednesday, the Houston Chronicle ran the following caption on a picture illustrating a story about Anna Nicole Smith:

“..the model could barely right a sentence.”

On a different story, a critic for that same paper recently produced this gem, “She looks a bit uneasy when she bears her breasts to the camera.” (This was obviously not about ANS, who never looked uneasy when she was baring her breasts.) (Warning: that link is neither safe for work or family friendly.)*

It makes one think. Rarely is the question asked: is our newspapers learning?
(The original link — not the Anna Nicole Smith one — via Romenesko.)

* Neither “right” nor “bears” was misspelled; however, a Chronicle columnist recently spelled diminished “disminished,” prompting one of the paper’s readers to comment, “You’d think spell checker would catch that type of mistake.” You’d think, right? And I’ve thunk. But for some reason that I still don’t understand, newspapers are unable to use a feature that’s been built in to word processing programs for the last, say, 20 years.
You’d think spell checker would catch that type of mistake.
disminished

Post Categories: Anna Nicole Smith & Houston Chronicle & Media & Romenesko