Reporting Accuracy

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I'm a real nitpicker on accuracy, whether it's an individual writing for their own amusement or someone getting paid for it. My background is in journalism and tech writing. I try not to nitpick too much on typos or transposed words, because those are both my personal bugaboos. I frequently don't notice those kinds of errors even after spell-checks and reading the piece over. I can't tell you the number of times I get a message from someone who asks me, "Did you really mean to say X?" And, most of the time, the answer is "Oh my, no!"

I've also done event publicity, and seen press releases I've written used verbatim for published articles about the event. At times, that's OK too, as at least you know the story about your event has been presented as the planners had intended. It may not be the best journalism in the world, but at least it's usually not wrong.

I've enjoyed reading the articles on The Road that have been published, and they've usually been, as far as I can tell, pretty accurate. There was at least one problem in the Fulton County Times article that was a little surprising.

The error that really struck me was the line: "and the few surviving humans have turned to cannabalism." [[well, cannibalism, but, like I said, I won't bitch about typos]]

If the few surviving humans had turned to cannibalism, would The Road be a movie that anyone over 20 would want to watch?

Perhaps the writer meant to say "a few surviving humans," but the difference between "the" and "a" in this instance is huge.

Later in the article, there are the quotes from IMDB and the movie publicist that make it a little clearer that the protagonists of the story are good people and not cannibals. That was a relief!