Is it just me or has CNN stopped employing people to proofread releases before the items appear on the CNN website? Why would I care, you ask? My father hated this type of lazy journalism and would wave the newspaper at me when he saw it in print. I guess he ingrained it in me.
I've noticed the trend toward sloppiness for a while, but two examples from today's CNN.com home page finally triggered my wrath:
#1 "Why train workers to leave?"
Which of these describe the real content of the article?
(a) People that work on trains are leaving their jobs.
(b) Companies may train their workers with skills that enable the workers to leave for a better job.
(c) Employers may educate their workers so the workers know how to leave ... something ... the building, their jobs, food on their plates, whatever.
If you answered (b), you'd be correct. It turns out the headline for the article itself, once you follow this link, is "Training workers to leave for a better job". Why didn't they use that same clear headline on the home page?
#2: "Memorial for Mom found in suitcase".
Your choices here are more simple:
(a) Someone found a memorial in a suitcase. That memorial was for a Mom.
(b) Someone conducted a memorial for a Mom who herself was in a suitcase.
Well, tragically it turns out that (b) is correct. A woman was murdered in San Francisco and stuffed in a suitcase. The suitcase washed ashore in SFO. The CNN video article is about the memorial service her children conducted for her near San Francisco Bay. If I followed this type of horrible news more closely I'd have read about this terrible thing earlier and I would've put two and two together more quickly, but I didn't ... and so had no clue what this was really about from the description on the link.
And your last two questions: Is CNN doing it on purpose? Is it just me?
