So what seems to be the problem? It could stem right from school level, where only 30% is required to pass English. Do young people today read anything other than that which they’re forced to in school? Doesn’t seem so – at a dental practice in London where I worked a couple of years ago, the only reading matter discussed among the young staff members was the exciting stuff in Hello and Heat magazines. So much of subbing is general knowledge, how does one acquire this if you don’t read widely?
Then, of course, costcutting is rife in newspaper groups, so you have a newsroom with rookie journalists who have little knowledge of grammatical structure or form. Their articles then often fall into the hands of junior and untrained subs with not a qualification to their names, who were at best in a past life teachers or bank clerks and at worst have never worked on a newspaper but perhaps were someone’s relative looking for some pin money. Old school training departments at publishing houses appear to be a thing of the past, and this is more than obvious in the parlous state of the written word today.
It’s all about the bottom line, of course – senior and experienced people are paid more than those at junior level, and shareholders must be kept happy at all costs. So newspaper owners appear to be quite happy to retrench the proficient and employ juniors “for experience” – and the quality of their publications slides ever downwards.
But possibly the biggest reason for all this is simply overwork – it’s well known in the industry that generally, too few editors and subs are doing far too much work in too short a space of time, to meet unrealistic deadlines – again, so that shareholders can rake in the profits.
And as for advertisements – don’t get me started!
Your views?
