For Bad Journalism, Look No Further Than Your Hometown Newspaper

Being from Lawrenceville, I read the Gwinnett Daily Post's online edition almost daily. Almost every time I visit the Web site, I find stories riddled with errors. If not actual AP style errors, the stories simply don't make good sense.

In this particular story, Josh Green, who normally does a decent job as a crime reporter, definitely does not meet the standards for what I would call good, solid journalism. In the second graph, Green writes, "the precinct has logged 96 entering-auto incidents." In my estimation, "entering-auto incidents" just does not flow well. Why couldn't he have said "the precinct has logged 96 incidents in which automobiles were entered?" "Entering-auto incidents" is just too much of a tongue twister (there is not an AP style rule for "tongue twister").

In the third graph, Green writes that the "victim's had left their vehicles unlocked." Wow. Victim's? Didn't we learn this in like 5th grade that an apostrophe on a noun shows POSSESSION?

Green writes that the crimes "have happened between 2:30 and 10:30 p.m." Shouldn't it say "2:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.?" For all the reader knows, it could be 2:30 a.m. Additionally, I believe he should have capitalized the word "police" in "Gwinnett police."

At one point, Green says "some more popular items lifted from cars include GPS devices, laptops, cell phones, purses and cameras." This sentence prompted me to look back up toward the top of the article to see what other items were stolen, only to realize that he ways saying these were the most popular items.

I won't even comment on his use of "easterly Gwinnettians." That's just kind of ridiculous. Just say "east Gwinnett residents," PLEASE.

Like I said, Green seems to usually do a better job than this so perhaps he was just having an off day. An example of his usual quality of work can be found here.