Tiny changes make a big difference
Once again, I offer you some examples of the minutae we deal with every day in our effort to be accurate on 680 News.
Here are a few of the things we discussed this morning.
Was the Superbowl actually “amazing?” That’s how it was described by one of our news affiliates and we bandied that about. All agreed it was a very good game, perhaps one of the best, but not all were on board with “amazing.” When you break it down logically - not always easy to do with a sports spectacle - either the Patriots were going to complete a perfect season or they were not. So it was actually almost predictable, not amazing, that the Giants would log an upset. It had to go one way or the other!
Another affiliate filed a report on the Spice Girls’ performance in the city last night, claiming the Girls “rocked” the ACC.
Rocked? Really? Would anyone who knows anything about popular music call the Spice Girls a rock band? We didn’t think so either. There’s no doubting the Spice Girls phenomenon is wild and crazy but it’s not rock! We couldn’t very well say the group “popped” the ACC so we see why someone would go with “rocked.” But we changed it anyway.
Sometimes news people are loose with the language and it’s the kind of thing that drives us a little bit crazy! Words are the tools we are given and we do our best to choose them carefully.