Perils of Print

Reading a local newspaper can be dangerous territory for an old reporter/copy editor. It's probably not because reporters and editors don't know how to write and edit. It's more likely that as newspapers push more and more of the production duties onto the editorial staff, editors have less and less time to do what used to be their primary function. Little things that used to squeak by occasionally as a matter of imperfection have now become big, messy things.

Take this passage from a story in our local paper, the Bucks County Courier Times, about a local sewer board:

"The board has yet to determine how much customers will pay for sewer flow per gallon. Suggested prices run from about $7 to $15 per gallon, but those costs won't be finalized until the authority's budget discussions begin."

If the reporter or editor thought about it for a few seconds, and did some arithmetic, that would translate to $11 to $75 dollars a flush, depending on the age of the toilet. A single shower would wipe out most people's food money for a week or two. Obviously the figures are missing decimal points or a per each X number of gallons. But the second half of that sentence is more subtle in its bewilderment:

".... those costs won't be finalized until the authority's budget discussions begin."

So they're going to begin by setting the rates, before they know how much revenue they need. Anyone who has followed any public budget process knows that such things zig-zag between a draft budget and a tentative rate, and the rate is finalized when the budget is, well, final.

I'd offer to do what's called a "markup" of their whole paper. But this and many more examples convince me they don't have will or the time for quality control. For another thing, they can't afford me.