You need proofreaders, Mr Lall

Jun 17, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to a published letter by Mr. Alfred Bhulai in the Stabroek News of June 11 complaining of too many proof-reading mistakes in that newspaper. In all honesty, someone should have written such an accusation against the Kaieteur News. I am doing so now. And I appeal to the owner, Mr. Glenn Lall to urgently do something about the consistent horrors in the proof-reading department.
I haven’t done the research but I honestly believe there isn’t a newspaper in the world with such incompetence among its proof readers as the Kaieteur News. Both senior editors, Mr. Adam Harris and Mr. Nigel McKenzie can testify to the years of complaints I have made against these proof readers including as recent as last month.
The brutal fact is Kaieteur News is in need of proof readers who can do proof reading. Those that the paper has at the moment cannot do the job and Mr. Lall should read the Riot Act to them. I don’t think any self-respecting newspaper would and should tolerate the level of dereliction of duty in the proof reading department as we see at KN.
Each day I make mistakes in my column. This is only natural. You have to do research, you have to change entire paragraphs as you type, you have to keep thinking so as to avoid libel and mistakes are bound to be made. The person to spot those mistakes is the proof reader whose only job is to detect the mistakes and in my columns the errors are always typographical or just carelessness in spelling.
Yet these harmless errors go undetected every day in my columns and in the news sections. And I mean everyday. I will give an example; I wrote that “the leadership of both the PPP and PPP… commonsense can tell the proofreaders that I slipped-up, I meant the PPP and another party. As you read on, it would show that the other party was the PNC. I shouldn’t commit those errors but the role of the proof reader is to zero in on these harmless faults; they don’t.
And this has been going on everyday for years now.
I cannot and no one should expect the editor to discern all the little faults because he has to edit the entire newspaper and write news item too and do the editorials. He is bound to overlook some mistakes. My understanding is that the proofreaders come in the afternoon and they divide the newspapers among themselves, how then can they miss such many mistakes everyday?
I appeal to Mr. Lall to confront this embarrassment. I was shopping a day at Nigel’s Supermarket, and this gentleman yelled out very loudly in front of many persons, “Freddie ya’ll need new proof readers; give me the job.” This was about four years ago. Since then it has deteriorated to alarming levels. My honest opinion is that it continues because management at Kaieteur News has not as yet taken a no-nonsense approach.
I can safely say that I am extreme liberal and I do not believe in punishing workers for a first time offence. I cannot support termination of employment as the only method of punishment. But in all sincerity, Kaieteur News should not accept this permanent horror show from its proof-readers.
The proofreaders are humans and are bound to miss some mistakes from time to time. But as a columnist with Kaieteur News I can say without fear of contradiction that everyday these proofreaders do not detect the slipups that columnists and the journalists make. This objectionable situation must be confronted. The ownership, staff and readers of the Kaieteur News deserve better
Frederick Kissoon

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