Lost in a bunch of trees

Today, I was browsing the Internet and came across an argument about who vs. that. Basically, the rule I was taught was to use who when referring to a person. Use that or what when talking about anything else. Of course, I was also taught to never end a sentence with a preposition and a host of other rules, including using more than instead of over.

This got me to thinking about saying "Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees." It certainly fits many editors. I myself have been guilty of this.

Let's go back to the forest. It's a maze of inaccuracy and libel, misspelled names, one-sourced stories and so much jargon, the story couldn't possibly make sense to the average reader. Math doesn't add up. Some reporters editorialize at length. And, of course, some reporters plain can't write worth a damn.

My argument has always been that going through a story and changing over to more than, cutting all uses of the word currently, changing ten to 10 and marking all those widows and orphans isn't doing a damn bit of good if the main subject name is misspelled. Or if half the story is missing. Or if a large portion of the story makes zero sense.

Before we get into who vs. that and whether the word is, is overused, can we please make sure reporters know that they should make sure names are spelled correctly? Could they actually use the phone book and call up some people for quotes? Could they figure out what the hell they're writing about instead of just printing council agendas verbatim?

In other words, worry about getting the reporting right. Then worry about who vs. that. After you've scrutinized the forest, go back and check out the trees.