Even with the addition of a hedge fund manager meant to inject additional skepticism into Berkshire Hathaway‘s annual meeting, Warren E. Buffett managed to escape making big news here on Saturday. (New York Times) Before facing questions from a crowd of more than 30,000, billionaire investor Warren Buffett got a rock star’s treatment Saturday when he was mobbed [...]
Beware of bitcoin Bitcoin* is all the rage. It’s extraordinarily difficult to write about because no one – including its creators – seems to be able to say exactly what it is. That makes it tough to come up with the nut graf**. This would-be educational video takes a stab at it, but is almost [...]
Although some strident voices clamor for a zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism — termination at first blush — that is not the norm. (Telling the Truth and Nothing But) The National Summit on Plagiarism and Fabrication, held during the recent annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society, took care of the “fabrication” part quickly, without [...]
The annual American Copy Editors conference runs April 4-6 in St. Louis. This gathering is the pretty much the only place to go if you are an editor looking to expand your knowledge and sharpen your skills. It’s late, but you can still register. The highlight of the conference this year is the National Summit [...]
John L. Robinson, and no doubt others, raised the annual alarm for the people-sit-around-the-office-watching-basketball story, which, just like PNC Wealth Management’s annual Twelve Days of Christmas price list, smart editors have learned to spike on sight. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the euphemistically self-described “global outplacement firm,” pumps out its March Madness “survey” every spring before [...]
Journalists love Twitter. The only thing they love more than tweeting themselves is citing the “Twitterverse” in their stories. “One of the rumors rumbling through the Twitterverse is Apple Inc. could announce a stock-split at its shareholder meeting tomorrow,” the Wall Street Journal’s Steven Russolillo wrote on Feb. 26. (It didn’t.) “Yahoo’s leaked edict under [...]
H.J. Heinz Thursday said it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by an investment consortium comprised of Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital. (Wall Street Journal) That’s how the Journal reported the Heinz deal early on. It was obvious from the headline and story, though, that it wasn’t a proposed “merger” at all. Berkshire Hathaway [...]
In October, Dell announced advanced products in servers, data storage and computer networking. It faces tough competition in these areas, however, from Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M. and Oracle. (New York Times DealBook) “Without admitting or denying” were the weasel words of 2011. In a fair fight, “however” would take the singular crown any year.* There’s no [...]
Editors, including copy editors — check that, especially copy editors — have to read the reports and documents that might or might not support the conclusions drawn by the writers and find stuff that would enhance the stories.
