The Signal criticizes Sodexho, Campus Life, President Barbara Gitenstein, and fraternities. It is about time that someone criticizes the Signal for its lack of journalistic integrity.
The best way to describe the editing is terrible. I can’t possibly describe all the simple, but disgraceful mistakes. As a staff writer, my columns are unfortunately subject to this process. Therefore it should have been expected that two of my first four articles were destroyed. These editorials were delivered without any grammar (grammatical) errors, yet were printed with typos and erroneous alterations to my pieces.
In the September 17th edition of The Signal, there were two separate editing errors on my writing. These are errors that shouldn’t occur in high school and certainly not at a college newspaper.
Knowing that many around the campus read my editorials, I was dismayed to see my proofread sentence ruined. When I originally submitted my writing, one particular sentence read, “Upon growing up arguments abound, but there will no longer be umpires.” After being published the mangled words survived as, “When they grow up, though, there won’t be any umpire [...]” Clearly they do not understand plural words, the necessary verb agreement, and pleasant-sounding sentence structure.
Embarrassed that this first error appeared under my name, I proceeded to read my piece discovering another editing mistake. The second error turned my complete sentence, “Again another supposed benefit is matching weights in football, which only matters when you have armed little warriors with pads, helmets, and strategies to tackle aggressively.” Notice the subject, “benefit,” and the verb, “is;” thus making it a sentence.
When my writing was printed, the same sentence painfully stated, “Additionally, the supposed benefit of matching weights in football, which matters when you have armed little warriors with pads, helmets, and strategies to tackle aggressively.” To my shock, this is not a sentence. Eight-graders recognize this as a fragment.
After reading my article, I was angry. Several coaches, Recreation Center staff members, and my peers told me they enjoyed the editorial; however I was severely embarrassed to be associated with the poor grammar, editing, and writing skills of my own piece and those at The Signal.
Unfortunately there is no other competing weekly or regular newspaper published at our college. The Signal is one of the only ways to gain valuable resume experience. Although, with all the mistakes printed under my name all without my doing, I will be unable to show these articles to possible employers when they ask for writing samples.
Since I need the publishing credit, I decided to keep writing for The Signal. Included with my third article to the editor, I included a brief polite note, “One other thing, [...] during the editing process can the staff be careful about grammar (grammatical) errors.”
Receiving no response or correction, I held my breath reading my opinion’s (‘necessary?) piece about Sodexho. Luckily the article remained error-free throughout the entire editing process. I felt relieved and happy that no new errors appeared under my byline, which should be the expected rather than the unbelievable. Throughout the week, most people I knew and even some I didn’t know noted my well written exposé. With the scrutiny of students and staff reading and judging my writing, it made me nervous that any future errors by the editors would be indiscernible.
So before my editorial about the closing of Veterans Stadium, I again attached a note to my editors implying not to edit it without my approval, since it is my name that appears at the top of the story. Unfortunately, I heard nothing from them, again to only be surprised when I read the paper when it first arrived late on Thursday evening. As usual a line had been completely altered to change its meaning. My submitted words read, “[T]housands of fans lingered to witness Mitch Williams, a pitcher get the game-winning hit.” Redundantly stated, I was describing Mitch hitting the game-winning hit. Unfortunately, my editors changed my words to mean the exact opposite, hence making the statement false, “[T]housands of fans lingered to witness Mitch Williams, a pitcher throw the game-winning hit.” Apparently they felt that “get” wasn’t a sophisticated word, but at least it conveyed the proper and correct meaning. The edited version doesn’t make sense, is untrue, and loses credibility with my readers.
On that very same page, they also misspell my name, which they managed to spell correctly the first three weeks. There is no excuse for such carelessness. Above my article, there was another error in Dan Cuellar’s column. The ink on the paper disgraces the entire campus, “I’ll take a guess as to why he said nothing more about plan.” I suppose it should have said “about a plan” or “about plans.” I feel bad for Dan because my feeling is this was yet another creation of editors or typists at The Signal. At the very least, it is poor editing.
After Dan’s column, I stopped not wanting (stopped not wanting--confusing) to read anymore (any more) garbage. Despite my feelings of growing disdain, I skimmed through the paper, falling upon the letters to the editor. It is obvious that sophomore Madhu Muthukumar shares my sentiments. He notes that as a writer, the editors’ errors reflect poorly on me, as well as the campus. He also mentions that most story topics do not belong in a college newspaper, which has certainly become a problem in recent editions of The Signal.
The worst of ironies to Madhu’s letter happened between his submission and publication. The Signal staff created yet another error, “[...] if the articles he writes we re-read by anyone, many errors would be reduced.” It’s doubtful that after typing that line into the computer, it was re-read by anyone.
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Copyright 2004, Kevin Semanick