AZ Republic reporters lack basic communication skills

Another horrific water related incident involving a young valley child occurred Saturday evening. The brief report was submitted by Molly Duerig, identified as a “master’s student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU.”

The four-sentence report contained this convoluted line: “The child was taken to a hospital, and their condition is still unknown, according to the Mesa Fire Department.”

Using the pronoun “their” to identify a single child, Molly the master student intern, was unable to master the simple pronoun antecedent agreement.

How many errors does the newspaper think the few remaining subscribers are willing to tolerate as they overpay for vicious, leftward skewed news in which President Trump is routinely reviled? (Read the small print “disclosures” regarding the actual rates.)

The failing, Hillary-endorsing, McCain worshiping, Arizona Republic prints a list of dozens of “Corrections and Clarifications,” that any reasonable person would rightly consider excessive.

Corrections refer to errors to which the newspaper has been alerted. Those in charge of errors conveniently include an email address and phone number along with the advisory to, “Please indicate whether you’re responding to content online or in the newspaper.” This message is necessary since both means of delivery are error plagued.

Clarifications refer to unclear messaging requiring interpretation. Know this: just like the rest of the content, it will be biased.

In the days before cutbacks, buyouts and mass layoffs, when journalists and beat reporters were doing the job, they were aided by alert editors — who have also been axed. Even the Pulitzer Prize winning, Trump-hating political cartoonist was given the boot after nearly 4 decades with the newspaper, as part of a staff reduction by former parent company Gannett Co., Inc.

Today, inept ASU Cronkite J School student interns doing the work for a byline instead of a living wage, remain oblivious to the fact that they are training for a obsolete job. They might not know better, but their tuition-paying parents should.