Does anybody edit the opinion page? (cont'd)
It's been more of an adventure in editing than usual on the Chronicle editorial page the last few days.
As Matt Bramanti notes, yesterday's editorial on Nepal was quite a piece of work. Here are a couple of highlights:
On Thursday, he named a prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, 84 and in poor health, as the next prime minister.
Naming a prime minister as prime minister sounds like a good move to this political risk analyst!
That would be a relief for a nation torn by their strife, but it’s doubtful that transition is sure to be bumpy.
What does that even mean?
Perhaps they should have just posted a recipe for Nepalese food and left it at that.
Bramanti also caught a gaffe in today's editorial on gasoline prices:
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., staged an unsuccessful five-hour filibuster demanding that federal royalties on gas from federal lands be raised from the ceiling of $55 a gallon.
There is just so much wrong with that sentence. For one thing, gasoline doesn't come from federal lands, but from refineries. Natural gas can come from federal lands, but it's not measured in gallons. Natural gas is also not measured in barrels (which someone substituted without note after Bramanti's post -- one of those annoying, nontransparent corrections that doesn't fool Google News). Gasoline is not taxed by the barrel. And the taxing mechanism is not as the Editorial LiveJournalists describe!
Here's some helpful AP copy for readers who are still left wondering what the Editorial LiveJournalists were talking about:
Much of the day in the Senate, meanwhile, was taken up by a dispute over whether to vote on a proposal by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to require energy companies to pay a federal royalty on all oil pumped from the Gulf of Mexico if oil prices exceed $55 a barrel. Some oil now is exempt from royalties, costing the government billions of dollars.
That's not so hard to understand. The AP must have editors.
And finally, there's this line from today's bizarre editorializing on the NFL draft (which probably should have been left to the sports columnists):
In passing over two obvious stars, team owner Bob McNair and General Manager Charlie Casserly have put their footballs in the defensive basket.
Footballs in the defensive basket? Leaving aside that hideous phrase, the Editorial LiveJournalists misspelled Charley Casserly's name. Look for the error to be corrected (nontransparently, of course) just as soon as some Chron.commie reads about it on the blogs.
UPDATE (05-03-2006): The newspaper issued the following correction today:
An editorial on Page B6 Tuesday misstated the ceiling on royalties paid for oil and gas from federal waters. The ceiling is $55 per barrel of crude oil or natural gas equivalent.
Sometimes (okay, MANY times), the more the Editorial LiveJournalists write, the worse it gets. Matt Bramanti elaborates.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/02/06 01:42 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (4)
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