Error

Has anyone else noticed a decline in the overall quality of news as of late? I seem to be noticing more and more that traditional publications (online and off) are just getting sloppy.

I keep up with a variety of news and tech sites. Almost every day I read or see gross incompetence glaring errors in published articles. Be it, the title is inappropriately devoid of punctuation, random typos, or flat out bad reporting, it is more and more common. Part of me wonders if the encroachment of blo​gging and other non-traditional platforms are the reason. Maybe the traditional media outlets feel pressured to get news out quickly and catching errors is an afterthought. That would at least explain the punctuation and typos. However, it does not explain the bad reporting.

A couple of my favorite news sites for all things Android are just going from bad to worse lately. One site posted a review between the S6 and the M9 based solely on the specs. No actual hands on review, just the specs. And the author admitted as much it the article. Sadly, his review was just flat out wrong. Specs can be impressive but anyone who has owned multiple smartphones can tell you higher specs doesn’t always mean better. Said site seems to be getting worse in this area. I’m to the point of just removing it from my news feed.

The other site posted a link, retracted it, changed a few facts and the title, and then pushed it out again. ^[1]I do this one a lot in error so can relate I guess they forgot that their RSS feed pushes out notifications. I opt for the ‘full text’ option on RSS updates so I had a birds-eye view of the corrections. At least the updated article had corrected several errors and inaccuracies. I emailed the author politely to let him know and he acted like I was being a dick! I mean, how dare I point out his stupid mistake so he can avoid it in the future?

I’ll be the first to admit my writing style is not perfect. I use a lot of deliberate slang and colloquialisms in my writing style. I am not trying to be overly critical as much as point out the declining accuracy in the written text. I tend to overlook the casual error but if I am being completely honest, I tend to not trust articles that are so poorly written. If you can’t be bothered to proof-read your work, how am I supposed to trust the content?