The Copy Editing and Headline Handbook by Barbara Ellis

Author:Barbara Ellis [BARBARA G. ELLIS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2012-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Others citing dubious numbers culled from even more dubious sources may be politicians, lobbyists, religious zealots, publicists, and writers and speakers with many axes to grind. Include also unscrupulous or lazy researchers who shift baselines, dates, and other numbers in journal articles that later appear at the bottom of bibliographies for other articles, steadily building credibility because few journalists rarely examine the first articles for flawed research. At least one famed feminist writer has been called to task for citing unsubstantiated statistics about anorexia deaths (“150,000 per year”). She used data from an eating disorder foundation despite a 1991 statistic of only 54 deaths reported by the National Center for Health Statistics. Can one year reflect many years? A decade-long epidemic?

Beware of politicians playing with statistics who claim real wages are declining or increasing. One writer declared that take-home income has increased because the “average-size house built in 1970 had 1,500 square feet and in 1997 had 2,150 [square feet].”6 Note that word “average” once again. Aside from insisting that the size of a home is directly related to wages or neglecting to use the latest data on U.S. median wages, where were those 2,150-square-foot houses? California? Mississippi? Maine? Were mobile homes included? Can the worker drawing the nation’s median salary afford to buy one of those houses?

When editing volunteerism stories, get suspicious about a company reporting that 100 percent of its employees contributed to a fund-raising campaign. Overt coercion usually is forbidden, but some companies mandate contributions as a hiring condition. Ask the reporter if this situation exists. Also, if totals appear sensational, fairness to other companies and the area’s workforce demands inclusion of the percentage of contributors or the median contribution.

Participation percentages will reveal whether employees were fired up about a cause or the company gave most of the dollars to keep its good-citizen image shiny—and to take a tax write-off for charitable contributions.

In real estate stories, inflation and supply and demand are always governing factors in property market values. Many stories are variations on a county pioneer paying only 10¢ per acre in 1847 when he built that 40-room mansion for $15,000, but the property just sold for $1,000 per square foot and the mansion fetched $15 million. Population density and housing shortages also drive up values. So do people coming from areas like California, where properties fetch significantly high prices.

Copy editors rarely have access to blueprints of proposed apartment complexes or malls or downtown buildings. But the reporter writing a story about them does have access through a zoning or planning board. Ask her or him about the details. When a developer desperately needs tenants (subcontractors are vocal), remember too that the number of units or square footage may be exaggerated to attract occupants. Don’t let them use the news columns for free advertising and promotion.

Many copy editors comb budgets from schools, cities, and counties and are not averse to getting out the calculator to see if the line items equal the debts and revenues announced at meetings and press conferences.

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