A Big Editing Blunder At The Comical
According to Chronically Biased, Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal is justifiably peeved at the Comical for completely mangling a "Viewpoints" letter that he sent to the newspaper on the recent controversy over George Rodriguez.
The editors of the Comical made a number of edits, but the main problem is that they changed the meaning of one entire paragraph.
Here's Rosenthal's original:
There is a recent DNA analysis of a hair that was found on the victim’s underclothing. The analysis shows that Isidro Yanez or, a male or female relative of his, contributed the hair. The room in which the assault took place had not been cleaned in some time so it is impossible to determine when the hair in question was shed. A serology test conducted by HPD on the samples from a rape kit and the girl’s clothing eliminated Mr. Yanez as a contributor to the samples.
And here's the Comical's edited version:
There is recent DNA analysis that shows that Isidro Yanez or a male or female relative of his was involved in the assault. A serology test was conducted by the Houston Police Department on evidence from the case and the question now is to determine whether HPD's test was done correctly.
I had to read Rosenthal's original a couple of times to follow exactly what he was saying, because it's a bit complicated. Apparently, it was much too complicated for the Comical editors, because they rewrote Rosenthal's letter to say the opposite of what he asserted in the original.
I don't think this is an example of Comical bias, but rather incompetence. The only real training that distinguishes a journalism-school grad from the rest of us is allegedly that the j-school grad has learned something about professional techniques of editing and reporting facts. Here, the Comical's editing changed the meaning of an important letter, thereby misrepresenting Rosenthal's argument.
It's inexcusable. At the very least, the Comical should have run their editing by Rosenthal. It probably would have been better to run the letter without editing.
The Comical needs to correct this mistake tomorrow.
(09-02-2004 Update) The Comical has run Rosenthal's letter again today, with a note about their editing error.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/01/04 21:16 | Houston | Technorati
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Comments
the Chron editors do that to their own reporters's copy too. it makes it more exciting for the reporters when they wake up in the morning and open up their paper. they're never quite sure what they'll find when they read their own stories!
Posted by J. Doorman @ 01:32 on 09/02/04
I am glad to see the Chronicle admitted its mistake. That really was a mess and the bigs there were wise to address it fast and not let it fester. They don't need anymore bad publicity.
It does demonstrate, though, a big problem at that paper, with editing. Perhaps Cohen needs to find someone to address that, because the current staff is clueless.
Posted by Anne @ 10:34 on 09/02/04
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