Public Editor must be fair and consistent
A pupil reads a copy of the Daily Nation during the launch of the Newspapers in Education Programme by the Nation Media Group in Nyeri County on February 17, 2024.
What you need to know:
- Many errors by writers are due to some oversight.
- Sub-editors must provide more backstopping for such writers.
You published and commented on my concerns about The Watchman (‘Why The Watchman should stop hiding behind the veil of secrecy’ — Daily Nation, Feb. 16, 2024).
You were logical and acted as a genuine ombudsman.
But it was extremely disappointing to see you take an about-turn on the matter on February 23 and give The Watchman unjustified credibility by trying to cover up and call him professional.
As your newspaper reader, I expect you to be fair and consistent in your role as the ombudsman.
— Nitesh Shah
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The EastAfrican’s surprisingly poor editing
The EastAfrican of March 2-8 is, surprisingly, poorly edited. Page 2 contains stories that have uncompleted sentences, and meaningless or nonsensical statements.
The story on Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti, for example, ends thus: “A court in Zimbabwe had sentenced him to six months in prison or a.”
Similar poor editing is evident on pages 3, 4 and 6. On page 4, for example, we are told that the Tanzania borders were “technically shut” following the 1977 break-up of the East African Community and the war between Tanzania and Uganda. But the Tanzania-Uganda war broke out in October 1978.
— Michael Hatego, Busia
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Endnotes by The Corrections Guru
Many errors by writers are due to some oversight. Copy editors (sub-editors) must provide more backstopping for such writers.
[Murang’a] Governor Irungu Kang’ata, discussing the kind of social reforms we need, writes in his column that we should start “with apropriate” policies on language, families and religions (‘Social foundations of a developed Kenya’ — Sunday Nation, March 3, 2024).
He unwittingly dropped the second ‘p’ in ‘appropriate’, which should have caught the attention of the copy editor.
‘Apropriate’ stands out as ugly, and without the double ‘pp’ the pronunciation changes somewhat. Though ‘apropriate’ doesn’t lead to any misapprehension of the text, it’s disappointing because the Sunday Nation is one of the NMG newspapers read in classrooms as part of the Newspapers-in-Education programme.
The double ‘pp’ is all-important. It’s used in thousands of English words, which would not be the same without it. Notice the six words with double ‘pp’ we’ve employed here. Happily, the copy editor added the second “p” in the online version of Dr Kang’ata’s column. We appreciate.
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Jaindi Kisero authoritatively informs us in his column why we have been put on the “global list of shame and ignominy” for money laundering (‘Grey area in wash-wash grey-listing’ (Daily Nation, Feb. 28, 2024). But he used the terms “correspondence banking” and “correspondence banks”.
It should have been “correspondent” banking or banks”. A correspondent bank acts as an intermediary between a domestic and an international bank. Fortunately, the embarrassment was removed in the online edition.
— Githuku Mungai, Nairobi
