Learn How to Write, People.

I've decided that I could be a journalist, if only because of the ridiculous amount of typos and misspellings that I've seen over the past few weeks on various news sites from around the country.  I may sound like an 82 year-old librarian, but hear me out.

The amount of news stories I read on a daily basis has skyrocketed lately, as I've been following stories on 1) the Harold Camping clan, 2) the Joplin tornado, and 3) the never-ending severe weather warnings that pounded Missouri literally all week.  It's been a rough and newsworthy week, and so I've been reading about everything to stay informed.

And, although I am quite informed about all the aforementioned situations, what I am now very aware of is the abundance of misspellings and typos in breaking news stories.

I understand that errors are inevitable when you're pressing to get a story released as quickly as possible, but some of the errors I noticed seem to be committed out of ignorance rather than haste.  A prime example is the article that sparked this post, about the severe weather that came through St. Louis today.  The article leads off with this line...

"Whaling tornado sirens and ominous skies had people scrambling to take cover in Chesterfield late Wednesday afternoon..." (source)


Sigh.

I'll give you a second to discover the problem for yourself, if you haven't seen it yet.

Here's a hint.  It's the very first word in the sentence.

"Whaling" sirens?  I don't think so.  In fact, my dear news journalist, I am almost certain that you mean "wailing."

Whaling, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is "the practice or industry of hunting and killing whales for their oil, meat, or whalebone."  Given that whales are something of a rarity in the landlocked mid-western state of Missouri, I doubt that the sirens were alerting St. Louis residents to the maleficent malpractice of whale poaching.  It is much more likely that the sirens were wailing - putting forth a "prolonged, high-pitched cry."

Dramatic word imagery fail.

I'm not a perfect writer myself, and I hate finding typos or misspellings in my blog posts after they've appeared for the general public to read; in fact, I always fix them immediately upon their discovery.  Why?  Because being able to communicate well is important, and you do an injustice to your ideas and thoughts if you do not communicate them properly.  Also, it's just plain annoying for the people who have to read whatever it is that you have written.

So learn to write...and learn to write well.  Especially if you're going into the paid journalism business.

For your convenience, here are some more helpful hints on how to speak English properly...