Tuesday, July 09, 2013

You can use the drinking fountain again

Q: When one of the star writers says something really, really silly in a 1A column, should you try to verify it?
A: Yes.
Q: Are you sure?
A: Very sure:

Monday: That's because Detroit, like some other older cities with 19th-century sewer systems, has a combined system that uses the same pipes to carry both drinking water and sewage.

Tuesday: Rochelle Riley’s front-page column Monday about environmental concerns should have said that Detroit, like some other older cities with 19th-Century sewer systems, has a combined system that uses the same pipes to carry both rainwater and sewage.

Don't bother looking online for the correction, though you can find a scrubbed version of the column. Here's the original reference to the smelters:

Detroit doesn’t have curbside recycling and burns most of its trash; smelters, which pump harmful amounts of lead into the soil, still operate in some neighborhoods, and the city’s aged housing stock is still too laden with lead paint.

And online today:

Detroit doesn’t have curbside recycling and burns most of its trash; the legacy of smelters, which pumped harmful amounts of lead into the soil; and the city’s aged housing stock is still too laden with lead paint.

It's hard to know which opinions to take seriously when you don't know which fact claims to take seriously.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Strayhorn said...

Somehow reminds me of "human race horses."

8:54 AM, July 09, 2013  
Blogger The Ridger, FCD said...

Ummmm. What the heck are we meant to think about "the legacy of smelters, which pumped harmful amounts of lead into the soil" anyway? It can't really go with the preceding clause, and can't at all go with the following one, and has no verb of its own.

8:08 PM, July 11, 2013  

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