Only 9 teams can make the eight: Richard Hinds has a maths problem

[SimonH]

This would have to be one of the most embarrassing writing and subediting errors made by a major newspaper in a while:

Already only 9 left to go into eight

Note that headline. It'd be tough to discount the chances of any team that is currently in the eight, right? So which of St Kilda and Port Adelaide are already a write-off? Well, actually, neither:

St Kilda's easy win over serially lamentable Melbourne yesterday kept the ninth-placed Saints in the hunt. The Port Adelaide fire still flickers after a tough win over Fremantle last night.

The Port fire still flickers, eh? (You'd be struggling to say it doesn't when they're a game-and-a-half out of the 8 with 12 rounds to go, and favoured to win this week.) So what's going on? In the next sentence, we see he's committed a howler of, um, failing to count:

Otherwise, Hillary Clinton is showing more signs of a sudden revival than the next seven.

But Richard, there is no next 7. Port are tenth. Count with me: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. I think there are 6 numbers in that sequence.

Sure, anyone can make a mistake-- even a shocker like this one. But real big 'ups go to the genius who made the mistake the headline of the whole article. That'll slightly undercut the credibility of the other points he's trying to make.

 

[evertonfc]

You're clutching at straws there mate.

Fair dinkum, Footy Fourth Estate = I'm-jealous-I'm-not-paid-to-write-about-football-board?

 

[Daytripper]

Hinds doesn't write the headline. Thats the sub-editors job.

Therefore looks like your headline is wrong too.

 

[evertonfc]

Journalists are the real reason petrol prices are going up.

 

[SimonH]

Hinds doesn't write the headline. Thats the sub-editors job.

Therefore looks like your headline is wrong too.

Read the article. The sub-editor extracted the mistake, made by Hinds, from the article, and made it the headline. Unless Hinds is blaming the subeditor for changing the body of the article as well (classic Media Watch strategy, that). As for my headline: that was referring to the Fairfax headline. I would have thought that was bleeding obvious.

You're clutching at straws there mate. Fair dinkum, Footy Fourth Estate = I'm-jealous-I'm-not-paid-to-write-about-football-board?

Huh? I don't think that pointing out that a guy paid to write about the 16 clubs, can't work out that 8 + 2 = 10, is akin to applying for a job with Fairfax. You'd obviously think that I was 'clutching at straws' if I pointed out on a politics board that a political reporter had just published an article talking about "the Prime Minister, John Howard...". It's not the end of the world-- it's just a silly error.

 

[evertonfc]

It's not the end of the world-- it's just a silly error.

You felt it was important enough to start up a whole thread on the subject, so I guess it's fair enough that there's some scrutiny on the OP, no?

 

[SimonH]

You felt it was important enough to start up a whole thread on the subject, so I guess it's fair enough that there's some scrutiny on the OP, no?

Indeed. More scrutiny the better. Just that your phrase 'clutching at straws' seemed (and seems) inapposite. Maybe the point you were actually trying to make was 'trivial'. If that's your opinion, no wuckas; I differ. The fact that an error is silly doesn't mean it's not worth noting.

 

[Feerits Elf]

The fact that an error is silly doesn't mean it's not worth noting.

What, like linking to the second page of the article despite your criticism concerning the whole?