9
The Copy, Paste, Rewrite School of Reporting
As noted, this Techcrunch story on a new startup called Skillshare was assembled in a highly unusual manner. (Or a very usual manner.)
As much as I'd love to pile on TechCrunch here, it doesn't look like a C&Ped press release to me. Instead, looks like Schonfeld was working from notes of a phoner with co-founder. The line "Our business model is similar to Eventbrite" seems more like someone jotting down a quote while on the phone, and very unlike language used in most press releases.
Sloppy as hell, and hilarious that it's still up there, uncorrected, 18 hours later, but probably not just copy pasta.
(Sidebar: The Facebook commenting regime at TC has made people so annoyingly nice — in the old days there would be commenters baying for blood. Now it's just a bunch of congrats, and one person noting the error and kindly suggesting how it could be changed. Boooooooring.)
@pemulis THAT is totally possible, to be fair, yes. I can see how that would happen! I often write-through quotes so if I'm working through transcripts, I could easily make that little mistake.
The Dean would like to speak to you about this.
Not to mention the astroturf comments full of praise.
I'm delighted to pile on TechCrunch. Their "reporting" is so lazy it's laughable.
Copy editors! Our jokes are terrible, our lives are sad, but we come in handy.
@Moff Friend!
An "awl," by the way, is a "pointed tool used for punching small holes."
@Leon Saint-Jean ross douchhat is an awl?