Editor's Blog: How do you read yours?
Comments |
Often I will go to events and be approached by
a reader who professes to read the KM every week ‘from cover to
cover’. This obviously pleases me because while we would love
everyone to be this avid, we appreciate that people live busy lives
and will sometime struggle to read every single item in what is a
substantial paper, especially when you include What’s On, the
motoring and property supplements plus the occasional one-off like
our war supplements.
We attempt to cater for all types of readers,
from the ones I’ve mentioned to the people looking for a quick
flick-through, perhaps stopping at the odd item of particular
interest. Editors and newspaper designers, in particular, are
always trying to come up with ways of pleasing everyone. Papers are
carefully sectioned, regularly features are ‘signposted’ and
headlines used to maximum effect to ensure the reader stops at the
appropriate point. A designer I once worked with came up with the
notion of the ‘super-scanner’ – a breed of reader who whizzes
through the paper at breakneck speed barely pausing for breath but
who still wants to feel they’ve somehow had an experience of sorts
by the time they come to the back page (or front, in the case of
sports fans).
We have one reader who’ll remain anonymous
(mainly because I’ve no idea who he or she is) who inhabits the
‘cover to cover’ category. Rarely a week goes by that I don’t
receive a cutting from him/her pointing out a literal,
inconsistency or other clanger. Sometimes they are amusing because
they are often accompanied by a witty put-down. Take last week’s,
for instance. A caption to a picture submitted by a reader stated:
‘This tree near Offham was taken by Ray Bonney, from Sevenoaks’, to
which our correspondent stating ‘I think he should give it
back!’
Mistakes in newspapers can cover a huge range
of outcomes. They can be legally costly or land the editor in
court. They can be dangerous or massively inconvenient. A
trainee journalist on a paper in Buckinghamshire once told me his
editor had made him stand in the middle of a field wearing a
sandwich board because he’d got the date of a fete wrong.
In the main, errors are plain irritating and
annoying. We take the greatest care to ensure facts are
checked and that spelling and grammatical errors are spotted before
they go into print. Some will inevitably get through and we will
correct them when they do. We don’t mind you pulling us up when it
happens in fact we encourage it because we care passionately about
getting it right. So whether you are a ‘cover-to-cover’ merchant or
a ‘super-skimmer’ please let us know.
Tuesday, September 21 2010
The KM Group does not moderate comments.
Please click here for our house rules.