February 26, 2011
A postscript to the second paragraph of yesterday’s note: if reporters don’t consider plausibility, they need at least to listen carefully. Here’s an example from World Wide Words:20 “During the devastating floods in Queensland, Australia, the front page of the Morning Bulletin of Rockhampton on 6 January included the headline ‘30,000 pigs swept away in flood’.” The next day, the paper featured this correction: “What Baralaba piggery-owner Sid Everingham actually said was ‘30 sows and pigs’, not ‘30,000 pigs’.”
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