Everybody makes mistakes. But it’s so much more satisfying when someone you really, really dislike makes a mistake. I hunt down grammatical and typographical errors in the NYTimes because it irks me to see such a good paper make such stupid mistakes out of a (misplaced?) desire to be the first in print. Well, “in print” is more accurate, I guess, considering what they’re actually rushing to do is post breaking news to a blog or upload an article onto the website. I not only worship the Times but have persistent fantasies about one day working at its copy desk, so every error stands out like a misspelled neon sign.
Then there’s the Wall Street Journal. I hate its parent company — Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, erstwhile home of such rational thinkers Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity — and I hate its editorial page, which uses the derogatory, GOP-coined term “ObamaCare” as if the real name, the Affordable Care Act, is too many syllables for its writers to remember. I hate the people it invites to pen op-ed pieces, who love to preach to the choir about overtaxed millionaires and “job-killing” environmental regulations. (Who cares if coal plants foul the air when the “free market” of pre-existing condition exclusions lets insurance companies off the hook for lung cancer treatments?) Most of all, I hate the racist, misogynist, homophobic screeds that fill the “Comments” threads of every article. The Times may be liberal, but there’s a lot of good business sense behind refusing to associate one’s product with remarks about how gay people deserve AIDS (seriously, I am not making this up).
There you have it: my overlong explanation for the delight I take in finding mistakes on the WSJ website. So the right-wing intellectual elite can’t proofread? Ha. Picture me laughing evilly. “Schadenfreude” became my favorite word the day I cracked open my old-school Merriam Webster.
In an interview with Aimee Bender, creative writing teacher, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and someone who* I’m slightly disappointed to see talking to the WSJ:
AB: We’re not there to help them get best sellers. That shouldn’t be the goal ever.
WSJ: I’d image that writing without regard to salability probably would encourage more interesting work.
Yeah, I’d “image” that too.
* It’s possible that ought to be “whom.” I may be a persnickety grammarian, but I definitely don’t have all the answers. I’m going with “who” on the grounds that it’s the subject of “talking,” not the object of “I’m slightly disappointed . . . .” Of course, this is coming from someone who had to Google “persnickety” to find out it only has one t.
. . . So Well Read. . . 