i'll take Beige Movies Starring Ralph Fiennes for $200, alex

it was bad enough when the washington post's caption editors had catherine zeta-jones playing in a celebrity golf tournament in 'wales, england'.  and when they described a team of skydivers attempting to set a world record as 'parashooters'.  (sadly, i am not joking.)  but now they can't even get the fluff pieces right?

( caption says: 'Rachel Weisz has emerged as an Oscar front runner for her supporting turn in' -- wait for it -- )

( seriously )

[eta:

Hi WashPost --

Today there's a photo gallery about the winners of the Screen Actors' Guild Awards. In the gallery "Greats of the Guild", under the tab "SAG Awards", image 13 has the following caption: "Rachel Weisz has emerged as an Oscar front runner for her supporting turn in 'The English Patient', having won the Golden Globe and, now, the SAG."  Problem with this (aside from clunky punctuation and the fact that the SAG *Award* is what Weisz won, rather than the guild itself): "The English Patient" came out nine years ago and the supporting female role was played by Juliette Binoche.

Granted both it and "The Constant Gardener", which is the movie for which Weisz is winning things this year, are dust-colored films set in Africa and starring Ralph Fiennes, but really, guys, come *on*. Between this, the mistaken placement of Wales in England, and the description of a group of skydivers as 'parashooters', someone is writing captions that *make your paper look ignorant*. What does someone's nephew have to get wrong before he gets fired?

cheers
[signed]

it won't get a response (less-snarky notes about the 'Wales, England' and 'parashooters' gaffes didn't), but it does make me feel better to have sent it.]

more washington post fun time

yesterday's ombudsman column included a bit where a reader wrote in to say it's Just Wrong that the post doesn't customarily transliterate the 'al' (or 'el') part of Arabic surnames -- and she brought it to the attention of the news division and they're revisiting the issue and making some changes.  go, reader!

so i wrote to her about the general problem i've been having with photo captions for several months.  i mean, facts are facts, aren't they?, and relating them wrong is relating them wrong, whether the text is an article or accompanying a photograph.  wales isn't in england, rachel weisz wasn't in the english patient, and there's no such goddamn thing as a 'parashooter'.  if you can't get the ombudsman on your side with the idea that it's important for a well-respected newspaper not to look illiterate, then whom can you get on your side?

... in any event, that felt good, too.  :-)

also, GIP.