... people looking for racism when it isn't there?

Shine's Joanna Douglas is at it again.

This isn't the first time Ms. Douglas has written an article indicating that she really wants to see racism where, in fact, there is none. (I'm thinking of the ridiculous piece she wrote in which she mislabeled Vogue's spread of a white model in varying shades of dark and light body makeup as "blackface" and said that "it could ... be considered racist". Yes, it could, if the person considering it had some sort of agenda, or weren't thinking too clearly.)

So Ms. Douglas, please stop. It's not always about racism. You can't judge everything through that lens.

Ms. Douglas said it best herself: "Vanity Fair may have been looking for the most promising batch of talent for their issue, but they should have been looking for a diverse group of women as well." The point is, she's missing the point. It's not a spread about a diverse group of women; it's a spread of the most promising batch of talent. If Vanity Fair doesn't think that there are any non-white actresses who deserve to be included in that group (and as some posters have pointed out, maybe there aren't any of the same caliber as those pictured on the cover), then it shouldn't change the criteria it is using just for the sake of including some.

People know when they're being included because of their talents and they know when they're being included because of their race. The latter isn't a positive thing. Expecting less of people because they're not white -- what George W. Bush, in a rare fit of eloquence (ok, his speechwriter wrote it), referred to as "the soft bigotry of low expectations" -- achieves inclusiveness in the short run, at the cost of high standards and to the detriment of those being patronized.

And once again, Ms. Douglas: please stop the race-baiting. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes dark body makeup is just dark body makeup, and sometimes a bunch of upcoming stars who happen to be white is just a bunch of upcoming stars who happen to be white.

...poorly edited news articles?

Check out this gem from Reuters, "Berlusconi attack prompts Italy soul searching". (Emphasis mine in each example.)

The third paragraph decides certain prepositions are unnecessary when it tells us that Berlusconi "was complaining sharp pains in the head and face".

The fourth paragraph throws comma use out the window: "Some commentators said the attack would help Berlusconi whose high ratings have been hit by accusations of corruption and sex scandals."

In the seventh paragraph, we are given the following nonsense: "The word 'hate' was used in many headlines and commentators as Italy searched its soul". (To which Groucho Marx might respond, "Inside of a commentator, it's too dark to write.")

In the eighteenth paragraph (fourth from the end), someone decided that hyphens are now out of style: "Berlusconi allies strongly attacked Antonio De Pietro, an ex magistrate who now heads a small opposition party".

Meanwhile, AFP has run out of verbs for its first paragraph of "Greece readies debt measures, unions threaten action": "The Greek government is later Monday to outline measures to combat the worst debt crisis in the country's modern history but its plans are threatening to spark fierce union resistance."

Doesn't anybody read these articles before they're published?

...journalists who abuse the English language?

The word "data" is a plural noun. The singular form is "datum". Why, then, are these Associated Press journalists writing "skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was" and "[i]t is not clear if any data was destroyed" (my emphasis)?

And take a gander at this sentence:

"And most of those e-mails, which stretch from 1996 to last month, are from about a handful of scientists in dozens of e-mails."

I'm curious: is the term "handful" so precise that we need the modifier "about" in order to add the required element of imprecision? And why the repetition of "e-mails"? Finally, can e-mails really "stretch" over a period of time?

I'd write this sentence as follows: "And most of those e-mails, written in a period stretching from 1996 to last month, are from only a handful of scientists."