Post New York Post Postings

Grammar matters.  It especially matters if you are writing in a national publication like the New York Post.  Unfortunately, the Post seems to be missing too many errors, typos and mistakes for a journalistic institution of its stature.

Let's start with an article published this Labor Day weekend.  It's a national story with widespread interest.  In the very first sentence, the Post's professionally written article is so grammatically flawed that it becomes incomprehensible.

The phrase, "and is continues to close in on her Iowa," makes no sense.  I think the author meant to say, "and continues to close in on her in Iowa," but that's not what's on the page.  This article was published on September 6th.  As I'm writing this on the evening of the 8th, the errors remain.

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes.  But, when mistakes begin to happen with regularity, something is going wrong.  I wasn't going to comment on the error above, until I ran across another set of flaws in another article from the same publication.

In an essay on global warming, there are two different places where the author put a carriage return where it didn't belong.  The result is it looks like one paragraph ended without a period, another began awkwardly and neither made any sense.

This exact error happened twice within the same article.

I understand many people will think I'm being a fussy Grammar Nazi, but this stuff is important.  Imagine if it was your company being represented by those errors.  It's the difference between being seen as professional or amateurish.  What are your company's communications saying about you?

http://nypost.com/2015/09/06/hillary-clinton-continues-to-lose-ground-in-democratic-race/

http://nypost.com/2015/09/07/wake-up-obama-climate-change-has-been-happening-forever/

Getting Some Heat From Ice Buckets

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has been a marvelous example of the power of going viral.  Millions of people have now dumped buckets of ice water on their heads and raised over $40 million (and counting) for ALS research.  They have not only created awareness, but, more importantly, they have changed people's behavior.  They have gotten individuals to spread the word through digital word of mouth.  Really, this is the best example to date of how to use viral videos to spread your message.

Most of the videos you see online with the ALS Challenge are rather straight forward.  A person standing center frame (sometimes in vertical video - a video faux pas) mentions who called him/her out and who he/she is calling out.  Then, he/she lifts the bucket of ice water overhead and dumps out the frigid fluid.  The only deviations to this script are either bloopers that involve falling down or bodily harm or both, or the inclusion of celebrities.  So, if you were challenged a couple of weeks into this viral phenomenon, how would you approach your video?  Has your company done a similar video where everyone on your staff lines up for a chilly soaking while the ordeal is recorded on a single, locked off wide shot?

When I was challenged, I wanted to do something different.  I wanted to participate and keep the challenges going, but I also wanted to stand out from the self-dousing masses.  Here is my end result.

This took about 15 minutes to shoot on an iPad mini and about 30 minutes to edit on Final Cut Pro (although I could have done the same thing in iMovie).  This is without lights and audio equipment or professional cast and crew.  The point I'm trying to make is that in a crowded marketplace (millions of videos) a little creativity can go a long way.  Sure, a couple of celebrities would go further, but they also cost a lot more.