Find the typo in this column

Two of the biggest complaints I get from Orlando Sentinel readers are about typos and mistakes in grammar.

Many see them as sloppy. Some wonder about our educational level. All express frustration at their frequency and prominence. Here’s a typical email:

“Over the recent years bad grammar and misspelling seem to have become the norm at the OS,” a reader wrote last month. “I’m curious if this will ever end, and if you’ll help us understand why this continues to transpire?”

Although I’m not a fan of twopart columns — I would give myself a thumbs down for this — I am going to address these questions in two columns. This week, let’s discuss how we got here, and next week I will bring in some experts and discuss solutions.

First, a bit of history: When I started in journalism in 1979 as a reporter, it was common for multiple editors to read what I wrote before publication.

First, my day-to-day boss, usually called a city editor, would read my copy. The focus was more on the reporting and writing than style, spelling and grammar. Still, a typo or two would be fixed in the process. If the story was important enough, another editor — perhaps the metro or managing editor — also would read.

Next, a copy editor would get it, looking not only at its completeness, accuracy and flow but also checking spelling, grammar and AP Style. (Sometimes there was both a designer and copy editor.) There also usually was a copy desk chief, who would review everything, including headlines and captions, before typesetting.

When I worked at the St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times) in the 1980s, there even

were proofreaders who looked over the completed page for anything others had missed. (And, in between, the person who pasted up the newspaper in the composing room often noticed a typo, so copy could be fixed.)

All of this happened hours before the presses ran, giving us more time to review our articles before publication. There was no Internet demanding to be fed 24 /7.

I’m not saying this made newspapers typo free, but it certainly created more opportunities for someone to catch that extra word you left in or when you use the wrong “there” or mixed up “hear/here.”

This began to change between 2005 to 2010, when newspapers, including this one, reduced staff to cut expenses and turned more

attention to the web. Among the deepest cuts were to the copy desk.

Over the last decade, the Sentinel went from dozens to under 10 production editors, who unlike the past handled both design and editing duties.

In fall 2018, we let go the last copy editor in our newsroom. We now have design and production of the print newspaper handled in our Chicago home office. They do not do traditional copy editing, so most copy now gets one to two edits from an assignment editor after a reporter files it.

These changes came at a time when all reporters and editors are handling more duties than ever. Reporters write more frequently and have deadlines all the time, not just one looming print deadline hours later. They also handle social media and are expected to have talent shooting photos and videos, and appearing in front of the camera.

Editors have more reporters

that they supervise who are producing more copy more frequently. Although they fix typos and grammar, their prime job is to assure stories are complete, accurate, balanced and interesting.

No one specifically has the job of a traditional copy editor, the last line of defense against typos, run-on sentences and misplaced or missing commas. (As the joke goes, there’s a big difference between “Let’s eat, grandma!” and “Let’s eat grandma!”)

It’s around this point where I hear many of you saying “So.”

I concede these are excuses. But it’s important to understand how newspapers got here before we can talk solutions.

To be fair to us, the Orlando Sentinel is not overrun with typos. We publish thousands of words a day and dozens of headlines and captions. Ocassionally, we get a word wrong.

But I do believe we have more misspellings and errors in grammar than in the past. Without even one copy editor, that result was inevitable.

Each mistake diminishes us in some way in the eyes of readers, who question that if we get the small things wrong, why should they trust the big things we do.

So what’s the solution, or as the reader above asked, will it ever end?

I will address those questions next week when I will bring in interviews I did with a former Washington Post ombudsman who wrote about this problem in 2009, the head of ACES: The Society for Editing and a UCF professor and former Orlando Sentinel copy editor.

(PS: I really would like to put an Oxford comma in that last sentence!)

(PPS: Did you find the typo?)