A Reuters Article with Some Interesting Problems

I read news articles and I see people who are paid well to produce things for people to read and I wonder. Really, I wonder. There are a couple aspects to writing, producing readable copy, accurately reporting the information and oh, yes, the most important thing, selling papers, time and advertising. Rarely when I read an article do I fail to find the Queen's English un-fractured. AP is among the worst. I believe they employ high school dropouts. Reuters has been for some time the standard of excellence but even they have had serious erosion. I wonder if they are failing in accuracy as much as they are failing English and selling papers.

By Andrew Stern - Thu Oct 30, 9:20 am ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Higher education has been a growth industry in the United States, evidenced by swelling enrollments, expanding campuses and growing endowments. But the global economic crisis has caught colleges and universities in a vice.

I wonder what kind of vice, numbers, prostitution, or did he really mean vise?

"The state of Arizona cut its contribution to the state university system by 4 percent this year and 5 percent next year -- with another mid-year cut possible, Its more than 118,000 university students may have to absorb a tuition hike next year of 10 percent or more."

Note the section, "possible, Its". Either the punctuation should be a period rather than a comma or the letter "I" should not be capitalized.

"It's not going to be as drastic as what corporations are doing," Watts said. "You don't just eliminate people and lay off faculty and expect not to destroy your academic program."

This article has lots of food for thought in other areas. What if you lay off faculty drones who aren't actively teaching? In case you don't know what that is a drone is a honey bee that does no useful work. Maybe the terrorists of the sixties who hold positions far beyond their academic credentials and contribute little value to the university should be the first to go. I agree you don't destroy your academic program but there is fat in every budget and excess in every faculty. You cut fat, not muscle and bone. And you cut all of the fat.

What if academia has to do what businesses do when things get tough? They get lean and mean. The grossly expensive "branch campus on every corner" mentality may have to go as will some day the "branch bank on every corner" mentality in banking. Remember when oil companies were putting a gas station on every corner. Today many of those buildings have other uses or they became victims of the wrecking ball. The "everything to everyone" mentality may have to go. Supporting terrorism to be multi-cultural may have to go. Wouldn't that be refreshing? Keeping kook professors who are tenured but only marginally utilized because what they teach really isn't in demand in the workplace may have to end. Wouldn't that be a hoot? Promoting the kinky in the name of diversity may have to go. Wouldn't that be an overall improvement? Maybe universities need to get back to the core business which is not catering to the weird but actually teaching someone something. And apparently the institution that Andrew Stern attended missed a couple of points about the English language.

In Andrew's defense, his article is better than most. Reuters generally is better than most. If you want to learn how not to write, check their competition.