Today is the first day that local title the Brighton Argus has been subbed from Southampton, following a controversial move by publisher Newsquest to centralise news subbing operations and lay off the paper’s Brighton-based subs.
And today’s edition brings with it a typo perfectly emblematic of the staff’s complaints that local papers need subs with local knowledge.
From today’s BRIGHTEN Argus…
Not just that: page 9, article on alcohol licence does not mention which town Claremont Road is in (Seaford, if you are interested). Poor.
Surely that’s just poor subbing and nothing to do with where the subbing takes place?
ex-sub… are you suggesting that a sub-editor who lives in Brighton would be just as likely to miss-spell the place in which they live… TWICE!
But if the subs were in Brighton they wouldn’t misspell the name of the city, surely, no matter how bad they are.
Everyone makes mistakes, even people whose job is partly to trap errors – and under the pressure they’re under I wouldn’t blame the subs in Southampton for this. But anyone who has lived in Brighton for a while knows what BIMM is. I’m not sure this was even a typo as such. The way it’s been repeated makes me wonder if the assumption was that BRIGHTEN really is the institute of modern music’s name. While Argus subs made occasional mistakes like everyone else, that kind of mistake – the name of a local organisation – is far more likely to be recognised and trapped by a local person.
Good theory. Which, if true, would beg the question of where this BRIGHTEN institute was? The name might be taken as a clue. But there’s an S Brighten Brisckworks in Bognor Regis, I notice 🙂
Tim – Subs are fact-checkers as well as spell-checkers. I also thought the capitalisation may indicate the correct name of the institute.
But a Google search to verify that took just seconds.
Sub hubs dilute quality by virtue of having to edit a larger number of papers per expert, with greater geographic variety than individual workers can be expected to keep up with.
Doesn’t matter to The Argus, though!
Surely the gratuitous capitalisation is more clumsy and offensive than the misspelling (not ‘miss-spelling’, Ben!). Also, does Bognor really boast a “Brisckworks”?
Brighton is not an unusual placename. You should be able to get it right irrespective of where you are. You do not need to be local to know names like that.
But, mistakes are made and this one was a gift for those who do not like subbing hubs.
Only accountants think hubs are any use in local papers.
There are a depressing number of style, typo, spelling and grammar mistakes in local papers. How can it be otherwise when copy that was checked about four times is quickly glanced at once. Junior reporters are getting sub-standard copy into print and thinking they’ve cracked the job!
Just because readers don’t complain doesn’t mean they are not seen.
The new A&N Media blog comments on the Northcliffe subbing hubs….amongst other things.
http://anmedianews.blogspot.com/
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