Exceptionally poor writing.

[4X4]

Rick Bell's entire m.o. is to incite the uneducated into believing that they're being screwed at every single turn. I don't read him often, but I've never once read an aritcle that was positive. Always, always, always about Silly Hall screwing this up, or this poor common man getting screwed by big corporation, or government.

It must be a really sad existence to see the world through his eyes.

[flamesfever]

I think much of the poor writing today stems from the time the writers were in grade school, when they were told, "Don't worry about how you spell or about correct grammar, the important thing is to get your thoughts out".

I believe poor writing skills came from the Phd's in Education who set school policies and curriculum's that ignored the teaching of proper English to children at the most impressionable age. It also let many teachers off the hook in teaching proper English.

Why do you think programs like "Hooked on Phonics" were so popular?...because phonics was no longer on the curriculum. Fortunately, many of the more responsible teachers continued to teach it, in spite of its removal.

A friend of mine, who taught biogenetics at U of T, asked his students to write an essay, and when he saw how poorly they wrote, he arranged for a colleague to give every one of his students a crash course in English. He was given a special citation from the University for doing so.

[Kipper is King]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

He's a spy for the Sun! Bad grammar!

Don't blow my cuver!

[IliketoPuck]

^ I totally agree. I usually stick to the herald/national post, but today there was a free copy of the Sun on the C-Train on my way to work so I took a quick read through it and then felt the need to post on CP about poor writing. Haha. Oh the irony.

[Kipper is King]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

Why do you think programs like "Hooked on Phonics" were so popular?...because phonics was no longer on the curriculum. Fortunately, many of the more responsible teachers continued to teach it, in spite of its removal.

I think learning methods based on phonics are a big part of the problem, actually. Students learn the sounds of words, but context and meaning are not stressed. If you hear someone confuse "Your" and "You're", they probably learned from a phonics based system- the words are homonyms, and sounds are what's stressed in phonics.

[stampsx2]

Isn't The Sun a second rate newspaper? Just one step short of a tabloid?

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Isn't The Sun a second rate newspaper? Just one step short of a tabloid?

Not if you ask the opinionated column writers who are convinced that their highbrow literary diarrhea is something more than a waste of trees.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

Not if you ask the opinionated column writers who are convinced that their highbrow literary diarrhea is something more than a waste of trees.

Whoa. I think I could write for the Sun. That long winded sentence is going on my resume that I send in to their editorial department to prove my control of the english language.

[Komskies]

I think they're columns are there own business and we shouldn't be going their. Their just trying to make a living.

[IliketoPuck]

You can choose to agree or disagree with public media, this thread in a way is my column and you can choose to agree or disagree with it too. Since they are writing in the public forum, they are completely open to criticism, and i'm sure they get complaints and letters all the time either supporting or flaming them for their opinions. It's just the nature of the beast in my opinion.

But there, they're, their, don't get upset.

[IliketoPuck]

They get paid to write what they want, and at the end of the day my opinion won't affect their decision making in any way.

[corporatejay]

The Sun just isn't a very good paper. Not even up to the Herald's decidedly middling quality, frankly.

A friend who works in the media industry claims that the Sun's writers are instructed to write as if their readers could only read at a grade 10 level. Not sure if this was true, but it wouldn't surprise me. I get that they have a demographic, it's just not me.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

A friend who works in the media industry claims that the Sun's writers are instructed to write as if their readers could only read at a grade 10 level. Not sure if this was true, but it wouldn't surprise me. I get that they have a demographic, it's just not me.

The water just got less murky. Interesting that they would be instructed to write that way. Guess that points even more to the demographic targeted by the Sun.

[IliketoPuck]

I know for a fact that the rate for advertising on the Sunshine girl page is the highest charged anywhere in the newspaper.

[Regulator75]

People still read dirty newspapers?

Ewwww.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

A friend who works in the media industry claims that the Sun's writers are instructed to write as if their readers could only read at a grade 10 level. Not sure if this was true, but it wouldn't surprise me. I get that they have a demographic, it's just not me.

Most newspapers have an informal grade level (not put down in any publication style guide, but informally known by writers); it's an important thing for every journalist to know what the grade level the voice of their paper is. That said, from what I remember from journalism school, a grade 10 level is closer to what the Globe & Mail was at that point, while the Herald was about grade 8, and the Sun was about grade 6.

[Table 5]

Shouldn't the editors at least edit at a college level though? Grade 6ers deserve correct spelling too!

[mrgreen]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Isn't The Sun a second rate newspaper? Just one step short of a tabloid?

It is a tabloid. Tabloid is just the size of the paper.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Shouldn't the editors at least edit at a college level though? Grade 6ers deserve correct spelling too!

Yup, it's one thing to intentionally write down to your audience. That's actually a sign of good journalism, if you correctly understand your audience. It's an another thing to combine that with grammatical mistakes, which raise the grammatical level back up because you're making your readers work harder to understand your crappy syntax.

[FurnaceFace]

It could be worse, he could be Mike McCourt. McCourt is Calgary's answer to Rex Murphy. Dude tries to use every big word in the dictionary. Three guesses on what organization will end up as his "Pinhead of the week" and the first two don't count.