Worst written article award goes to….

11 Feb, 2009  Annoyances, Random

Sorry but I just had to mention this. This is an example of an article written the “WRONG WAY”. This one comes from The Peninsula.

Source

Villa Gutted

Inmates of a villa in Al Hilal area had a providential escape as the part of a building gutted in fire due to a suspected short circuit, yesterday. It was a narrow escape for more than 20 resident living in the two storied villa.

Residents have noticed smoke emanating from a room in the second floor of the building at 7.00am and alerted the Police and fire fighters.

“Fire broke in side a room and smoke started spreading all over the villa around 7 in the morning. Every one was panicked and we quickly got out of the building,” said a resident.
“Fire fighters rushed to the spot which brought the fire under control within an hour and investigations have commenced,” he added. Extensive damages are caused in a room in the villa which has 10 rooms.

1) Title leads reader to believe that the villa was ransacked
2) Inmates? The article should elaborate or else the wrong word was chosen. I do understand how some people feel they’re prisoners in their own home though
3) Fire’s cannot ‘gut’. Gut means ripped apart. The correct title should be Villa Fire-Gutted (IMO)
4) Grammar of first sentence is appalling
5) 2 story villa not storied. (I was corrected. Thank you adey.)
6) 20 residents not resident
7) Residents noticed
8) “On the second floor” not” in the second floor”
9) The final quote from a resident is too formal which means that either the resident is an official (which I doubt) or the quote was made up (tut tut).
10) Tense changes throughout the whole article.
11) The final sentence should have been included in the first paragraph.
12) Police capitalised but fire fighters not.

So my dear friends, that’s an example of a poor article. I don’t understand how that one got past the editor…

Note: I am not simply ranting, I personally know the editor. She’s fantastic and is working amazingly hard to improve the newspaper. I believe that it’s essential for people to highlight flaws and mistakes so that they can be improved just as some users on this blog are doing! It’s the only way we can learn. I’m also not a journalist myself, just a normal reader.

11 Comments so far »

  1. stephanie said,

    Wrote on February 11, 2009 @ 6:37 pm

    I am so glad that someone is finally saying something about the grammar, spelling and translation mistakes in the press. Even funnier and sometimes scary are translated menus from arabic to english……

  2. Ahmad said,

    Wrote on February 11, 2009 @ 11:21 pm

    i don’t know who writes these articles !!

    how do they get hired ?

    people translate literally from their first language.. which ALWAYS ruins whatever they’re saying/writing.

    i wouldn’t be surprised if they actually used Google translator to translate the original article that is probably written in Arabic.

    whoever wrote this, doesn’t speak english as a first language.. what pisses me off even more is that if you look in the arabic newspapers.. u’ll find similar mistakes ! some people can’t even write in their first language ! that’s just sad.

  3. BlueGrey said,

    Wrote on February 12, 2009 @ 2:06 pm

    I have heard something from a friend of mine who started to work for the Peninsula but quit after 1 week. My friend has English as her first language, and wrote articles that were corrected by the editor with wrong grammar!

    It’s just ridiculous!

  4. adey said,

    Wrote on February 12, 2009 @ 3:04 pm

    ‘House gutted by fire’ is a perfectly acceptable and often used phrase. It does not mean ripped out, it refers to the fact that the inside is destroyed, has disappeared thus ‘gutted’, leaving the house an empty shell.

    Using ‘storied’ instead of ‘story’ is okay in this context.

    Apart from the two points aforementioned I would agree with you that the article is badly written.

  5. passerby said,

    Wrote on February 13, 2009 @ 2:56 pm

    Yes, gutted is quite acceptable. And while you’re picking at nits in that story (I agree with much of what you say), I will pick at one in your No. 4: It’s appalling, not “appauling.”

  6. Kei said,

    Wrote on February 13, 2009 @ 3:03 pm

    @passerby,
    You’re right I’ve now fixed that spelling mistake. I’ve also installed a spell checker into my browser now. I don’t really think I’m nitpicking when there are so many errors though.

    In regards to gutting, I’m specifically talking about the title. The correct way, I believe, would be to say ‘Fire-gutted’, not Villa gutted.

    Now I shall mention a few points however.

    1) English is not my first language
    2) I typed this in the 10 minute break I had
    3) I don’t have an editor to proof read
    4) I’m not a professional publication

    Don’t get me wrong, I love The Peninsula’s editor, she’s a fantastic and hard working woman. I just was surprised that this article got out.

  7. News junkie said,

    Wrote on April 5, 2009 @ 11:50 pm

    Dear Mr. Q,

    You have made your point Mr. Q but you have a few errors in your blog posting.

    Error – poor article
    Suggested correction – poorly written article
    I.E. The article in The Peninsula was poorly written.

    Error – passed
    Correction – past
    i.e. How did the text get past the Editor who should have been proof reading for error.

    Kind regards,

    Journalista

  8. Kei said,

    Wrote on April 7, 2009 @ 3:02 pm

    Thanks, I’ve made corrections.

    Again though, please bare in mind that I’m not a professional journalist, but I do expect a higher standards from a newspaper. :)

    I corrected ‘passed’ but I did leave ‘poor article’. I agree that poorly written is 100% correct, but I’ve seen poor article used before (when I googled Poor Article just now many used it, although I guess many can be wrong :P )

    Thanks again!! I really do want to improve my English skills.

  9. Sybil said,

    Wrote on April 7, 2009 @ 6:28 pm

    Geez,Kei,you handled that well. I was ready to beat somebody (or would that be someone?) up.

  10. Rainbow said,

    Wrote on April 26, 2009 @ 10:34 am

    Actually when I read the headline I immediately thought that there had been a fire. Never heard of “fire-gutted” as an expression.

  11. Kei said,

    Wrote on April 26, 2009 @ 10:38 am

    http://www.google.com/search?q=fire-gutted&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=

    :)

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