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December 29, 2014 01:19 am | Updated 01:19 am IST

A.S. Panneerselvan. Photo: V.V. Krishnan

A.S. Panneerselvan. Photo: V.V. Krishnan

Journalism is an act of affirmation of life. It brings together myriad views and opinions, expectations and aspirations. It mitigates our nightmares and points to a path to realise our dreams. It holds people in power accountable and it gives power to people to articulate their hopes. It is a joint endeavour where readers and journalists come together to create a transformative narrative. Readers are the reason for journalism. The next two columns are dedicated to readers’ voices. Is there a better way to bid adieu to 2014 and welcome 2015 than articulating their voices?

Spotting errors

One of the regular writers to this office, M. Nagarajan, can be designated as the fact-checking editor of the decade. His sharp eyes notice every little mistake in our editorials, lead articles, comment page write-ups and news reports. Let me share one of the recent corrections we made following Mr. Nagarajan’s mail. He pointed out that in September 2014, it was the Supreme Court bench led by the then Chief Justice R.M. Lodha that gave the Italian marine Massimiliano Lattore permission to travel to Italy for four months and not the bench led by the current Chief Justice H.L. Dattu. Mr. Nagarajan never misses out multiple spellings of names (for instance, Malala Yousafzai), wrong dates (Ghulam Nabi Azad’s term as an MP ends on February 10, 2015 and not on February 15 as published), inaccurate descriptions and the oft-repeated mistakes between Sections and Clauses in the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code (A sentence in “Akhilesh orders action”, December 12, 2014, read: “Mr. Ismail lodged the complaint under Sections 153 A and 315 of the Indian Penal Code...” It should have been Sections 153 A and 415 of the Indian Penal Code).

What Mr. Nagarajan is to the edit pages, Maniyur Raghavendran, a consultant urologist and transplant surgeon, is to the sports pages. About the report, “Stunning spell from Abbott,” he pointed out that the Bulls lost by an innings and 80 runs. But the report stated that the Bulls were dismissed for 99 in pursuit of 179, making it look like they lost by 80 runs. In another mail, he pointed out the wrong venue in the report, “McCullum, Williamson lead run-feast.” The report stated that the previous best score of New Zealand was 563 in Hobart in 2003. The venue was Hamilton and not Hobart. Regarding another report, “India dominates lone T20,” he drew our attention to two different statements. While the report stated that Sunette Loubser was run out, the scorecard read that Loubser was bowled by Ekta Bisht. He rightly asked which one was correct.

Another writer, C.G. Rishikesh, laces his letters with a tinge of sarcasm and humour to point out lapses. His letters have an interesting intertextual reading of the ‘Corrections and Clarifications’ section. There was a grammatical error in a headline recently. It read: “More need to be done to promote Tamil Isai” instead of “More needs to be done to promote Tamil Isai.” Mr. Rishikesh wrote: “You might call it ‘a grammatical quirk,’ I guess.” His reference was to a correction we had carried with a caption, “spelling quirk.” It read: “A sentence in “Copybook style rendition” (Music & Dance supplement, Dec. 16, 2014) read: “Lalitha took up the anthrax: ‘Preetkiye Pachtaye Bavri Jhoothohi Manko Kales…” Actually, the reviewer was referring to antara — which is the second part of a khayal composition in Hindustani classical music — and not to any bacillus.”

Vijay S. Raghavan writes about various editions of The Hindu as he is a frequent traveller across the country. He was unhappy about the paper’s decision to suspend the e-paper of the Kolkata edition. He wanted The Hindu to carry special articles by former players during crucial international matches. He is of the firm opinion that this newspaper should leverage its strength by having a strong pan-Indian presence.

One of the regular callers to our office, S. Narayanan, is a language editor of sorts. He often points out the errors in syntax, oscillation between active voice and passive voice, and confusion in the use of past tense and past perfect, in particular, and the style of language in general.

The cost of shortcuts

But, the mail that moved me was from Krishna Ramkumar, grandson of the legendary editor of Ananda Vikatan ,S. Balasubramanian. He was justifiably annoyed at the reliance on web-based resources to write the obituary of his grandfather. The material on the web did not have the personal details right. Most of the publications, including The Hindu , said that Mr. Balasubramanian was survived by his wife, six daughters and a son. But in reality, he lost a daughter, the letter writer’s mother, in 2006. Mr. Ramkumar says this mistake was a product of not cross-checking either with the family or his home publication, Ananda Vikatan . In a sense, his plea is a tribute to the departed editor par excellence: “I can only hope and pray that we and the current crop of media will look to the past generations of journalists, reporters and newspersons who displayed meticulousness, conviction and absolute reliability in terms of what they conveyed to people without taking shortcuts, and instil these values back into the fourth estate.”

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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