Wanted: Copy Editor for P & C

Newspapers are dying. The internet is taking over, and on-line news is the future; for some, even the present.

Teaching students how to distinguish an authoritative website from one that is uninformed includes checking to see if spelling, grammar, and usage are correct. Another way to distinguish a bad source is its inclusion of misinformation. In the last few days, the P & C has failed on both counts. Blogs don't have copy editors; newspapers must.

For example, it was discouraging to read in Tyler Simpson's article, "Juneteenth feted in N. Charleston: Brief history": "On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all the slaves in the country." Really? Even Wikipedia, hardly an unchallenged source, states the slaves were freed "in the ten states in rebellion."

Recovered from this disappointing ignorance of history and  reading Charleston Scene in Monday's paper, I discovered ignorance of grammar as well.

• On the German biergarten: "There also was beer school classes, cornhole, a photo booth and more." "There" is never a subject; clearly the subject is plural and the verb must be plural in agreement.
• On the Carolina Billfish Classic: "And with the fishing comes parties." "Fishing" is the object of the preposition, not the subject, which is "parties."  Thus we have another example of incorrect subject-verb agreement.

I'm sure there are readers of this blog that will think that such mistakes don't matter, After all, they would say, we know what they meant.

My students ask, "Does spelling count?" Only if you want to be taken seriously.

Copy Editor needed ASAP.