For the record: “pro-life” doesn’t always mean “anti-abortion.” Particularly when you’re writing about opera. One of the more humiliating copy desk mistakes I’ve seen.
5 thoughts on “anti-abortion opera”
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For the record: “pro-life” doesn’t always mean “anti-abortion.” Particularly when you’re writing about opera. One of the more humiliating copy desk mistakes I’ve seen.
Comments are closed.
AP Stylebook blinders, I suppose: all rules, no context.
I’ve never worked for a media outlet that would acknowledge copyediting verses reporting mistakes, although I have had several editors screw up details of my articles. Creates future problems with sources.
I know what you mean. Since several copy editors read crabwalk.com, I should point out that yes, copy editors save our asses all the time. But I think “because of an editing error” makes sense in a correction, just as “because of a reporting error” should.
I’m most upset when I have to run a correction because someone gave me erroneous information. I had to write one last year when the Texas Education Agency screwed up and gave me some bad info. I think that correction should have said something like “Because of incorrect information supplied by the Texas Education Agency…” More information is good.
I agree. I’ve gotten into it with editors who want corrections to be as broadly painted as possible. It’s bad enough that they run buried in the paper where very few original readers are going to see them. But for them to be so generalized is a lost opportunity to build credibility with the public. I respect a correction that explains how/why an error happened.
I am surprised that a copy editor has the power to substitute one politically charged phrase for another. Shouldn’t the goal of changing politically charged copy be to replace it with more neutral copy? Crazy!
How is “anti-abortion” a politically charged phrase?
Unlike some, I don’t have a problem with using “pro-life” and “pro-choice” in news stories. But anti-abortion seems awfully descriptive for people who want to make abortion illegal.