Editor's desk: Week of June 26, 2006

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Friday June 30


The stats are in and here's what drew the most readers this week on nzherald:

1. Church bells ring for Kidman's wedding

2. Doctor's brothel not attracting customers

3. We want to know who killed twins too, says family
    [audio report]

4. Price of houses will drop, says Reserve Bank head

5. Police officers 'seriously assaulted' in Henderson
- - - posted 1.27pm by Neil Sanderson


Reader comment: It is ironic that on the page in today's paper (pC4) where there is an article on the effect texting is having on the English language there are examples of incorrect grammar by the Herald. On both pC4 and pC5 there are examples of the incorrect use of "its" eg Peter Griffins's piece on the Nintendo DS Lite where the first sentence uses "it's" instead of "its" and again in Georgina Bond's article opposite, the third sentence repeats the error. Was the business sub having a bad day?

I have also noticed a slippage in the rule about the agreement of subject and verb with regards to collective nouns. Normally the word "family" for example takes the singular eg "The family goes on holiday." On several occasions recently the Herald has used the plural. Is this a new decision? eg Family wake to nightmare attack (headline 25 May 2006) eg Family support son in firearm case (Headline 20 May 2006)

I think we have now all accepted the Herald's use of the plural with "team" but please don't let the slippage occur with other collective nouns.
- - - posted by Allison


Response: Thanks for pointing out the rogue aprostrophes Allison. We've removed them from the online versions of those stories.

As for collective nouns, I share your view that collective subjects ought to take singular verbs, but there are many New Zealanders who would disagree. I've even heard the plural verb used when the subject is indisputably singular, e.g. "The visit by the leaders are scheduled for next week".

The Herald's official style is to use plural verbs with all sport teams, e.g. The All Blacksare..., The Sting are... and we try to follow that in the online edition.

Beyond that, I think our approach at nzherald.co.nz probably reflects what's heard on the street - a bit of both.
- - - posted 10.30am by Neil Sanderson

Thursday June 29

Unplugged:

The worst part of discovering that we had no broadband connection from home last evening was the realisation that I was going to have to ring Telecom. I would then have to explain the problem to half a dozen people who would each try to convince me that there was a problem with my computer. I've been down that road a couple of times before. In both cases the problem was an unplugged cable at the Telecom exchange, but trying to convince the phone company that you don't need to change your PC's "IP config" isn't easy.

Last evening though, it only took about 10 minutes before someone answered the Xtra helpline and straight away acknowledged that all ADSL users in the Auckland region had been offline for about an hour. So I could stop crawling under the desk to reboot the modem.

Suggestion to Telecom: Next time this happens, why not put up a phone message so that frustrated users don't have to hang on the line waiting for an overloaded employee to tell them you're aware of the problem and working on it?

One good thing about being offline for a few hours: those stacks of papers that seem to accumulate despite our digital lifestyle are just a little better organised now. Some of the paper even made it as far as the recycling box.

- - - posted 9.45am by Neil Sanderson

Right to silence:

Amid the outrage over the deaths of baby

twins Chris and Cru Kahui

, and the clamour for police to get tough on family members who refuse to talk, reporter Anne Beston today offers a very helpful summary of every New Zealander's

right to remain silent

.

- - - posted 7.35am by Neil Sanderson

Wednesday June 28

Looks like a trend. The BBC website has unveiled a new section featuring

blogs by about 40 BBC editors

.

- - - posted 12.43pm by Neil Sanderson

Tuesday June 27

David Haywood on

Public Address

has posted the fascinating

story of Shahzad Ghahreman

who came to New Zealand as a refugee from Iran in 1989. Mr Ghahreman tells of fleeing his homeland after being placed on a "prohibited list" for opposing the Islamic regime. Seventeen years after settling in Auckland with his wife and three children, the family are, to say the least, flourishing.

On the subject of

immigration

, submissions on proposed

changes to the Immigration Act

close July 1. You can read

the documents and submit your comments online

.

- - - posted 9.40am by Neil Sanderson

Reader comment:

Both

Jim Hopkins

and

Brian Rudman

caution us to avoid the temptation of targeting Maori for the shameful

death of the baby twins

. Rudman concludes that "we" are all to blame and that "we" should have both the compassion and the capacity to prevent such barbaric behaviour in our midst. Hopkins uses his compelling style to expose the hollowness of the "we" argument, concluding that the individual and a conscience-bereft benefit system are as much to blame for the lack of a sense of "moral compass" as any other. Hopkins has my vote.

- - - posted 7.30am by Peter

Monday June 26

Anyone who has closely compared the print edition of the Herald to the online edition has probably noticed that we frequently use different headlines on the same story. On the website, we try to make our headlines as descriptive as possible so that even if you just see

a list of them

you'll still get a pretty good idea of what each story is about (and, we hope, click on the headlines that appeal to you).

Newspaper headlines don't need to be quite as descriptive, since the story is always visible on the same page, frequently accompanied by photos or graphics to help make the subject clear. (Our newspaper subeditors have other challenges, however, as they strive to create headlines that will fit into a very tight space, while still being accurate and enticing you to read the article.)

Another reason for making headlines descriptive, is to help search engines understand what the stories are about, something Steve Lohr of the

New York Times

laments in

This boring headline was written for Google

.

I'd love to hear what you think:

* Are website headlines too descriptive or too boring?

* Are there some headlines on nzherald that need to be more descriptive? Feel free to tell us how you would change them.

* What do you think of puns in headlines, such as these on the story of Jin the fugitive otter?

Traps to be laid on Rangitoto as trail gets otter

Come home Jin, you really otter

- - - posted 9.40am by Neil Sanderson

Lorraine Downes beat the odds (and the prediction of our

Sideswipe

columnist Ana Samways) to win

Dancing with the Stars

last night. If you'd like to see more of the glamorous dancer and former Miss Universe, Ana has kindly dug up the

TV footage of Downes' 1983 Miss Universe triumph

and posted it on her blog.

- - - posted 8.44am by Neil Sanderson