However…
Posted by Pierre Igot in: WritingMay 29th, 2003 • 8:27 pm
I don’t usually read James Adams’ weekly column “Weekend Diary” in Saturday’s Globe and Mail. As the column title indicates, there is very little of substance in it.
But today I came across this:
However, because Heidi [Fleiss] has a criminal record — she spent 1997-2000 in a California prison for money laundering and tax evasion — she needed to get a minister’s special visa for admission to Canada. However, the former pediatrician’s daughter failed to do so, and she was turned away at the border. [my emphasis]
Need I say more? When a veteran writer is careless enough to write two consecutive sentences beginning with “However”, and nothing prevents such poor writing from getting printed, you know you have a problem. You know Canadian journalism has a problem. You know journalism has a problem.
I see it all the time, in all kinds of publications, by all kinds of established writers. It is, I am afraid, symptomatic.