Comments:TV presenter Vernon Kay has to deny death claims after Wikipedia article claims he is dead

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Standard english, basic journalism

I do not know how to put this politely, so I apologize in advance and will state it baldly: this is an example of terrible journalistic writing.

From the - quite literally - lame story angle to the passive-voiced lede to failure to cover the five W's and H, this piece should never have passed out of development let alone being reviewed to be published. In fact, I would censure the reviewer(s) more than the original authors: You are the last editorial process, and you failed.

<pedantic mode>

The story angle is just bad. The "reports of my demise are grossly exagerated" approach was fresh in the late 1800s, as a telegram. Never since. The "Wikipedia has misinformation" angle is equally dead: we've reported that one dozens of times. I can barely see how this might be a news story at all unless the reporter can pin the edits on Vernon Kay somehow. But if you *have* to cover it for some reason, where is the information about who Mr Kay is? where he is? why we should be interested in him?

The lede is everything in print news coverage. The first sentence or short paragraph needs to be active voice, present tense, and should introduce all the primary particulars of the story which will be expanded further into the article. This approach to news writing is often called Inverted pyramid style, with the broadest statements at the top, drilling down to more precise details the further down into the article the reader gets. The approach is designed to help readers decide quickly if they want to read further, as well as giving them a complete story at some level of detail no matter where they choose to stop reading it.

This is basic journalism, and should not be required to be repeated. Just as every cub reporter should know that every article should answer the 5 Ws and sometimes H: Who? did What? Where? When? Why? and, if possible, How?

</pedantic mode>

I'm writing this by request; normally I'd just say "eh, en.Wikinews, what do you expect?" But some members of this community really do want to see an increasing quality of reporting here. - Amgine | ^t 23:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No wonder I found the above remarks here, they deserved to be made. -71.197.8.9 —Preceding comment was added at 05:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the criticism. This is something for Wikipedia weekly, not Wikinews. What is this? "Anonymous Wikipedia contributor lights fart, pictures at 11!!1!!1!!!!1"? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:54, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It's meta-press. I'd wish Wikinews stop doing it. It's a funny story, but it makes the site look really amateurish. Which would be ok for a school newspaper or something. Not so much for an international website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.82.179.226 (talk) 02:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer that Wikinews not do stories on Wikipedia (or any Mediawiki project). It's like CNN running stories about Time Warner. They do it, but it is in bad taste. As for editing quality, that will only improve when we get more copyeditors. The contributors who are grammar nazis try their best, but there are only a few of them. This is another example of the "when we get more people..." issue. Gopher65_talk 03:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)