It's apparent, after reading the article on Oscar Goodman (cover story, December 2), that you either lack a good copy/print editor or that you just don't care as to the content of the story. Before I even reached the bottom of the first column, I had found several typos, misspelled words and lack of proper punctuation that totally changed the context of the interview. It's a shame that with today's modern technology (spelling and grammar check programs), you don't have someone to proofread a story before you actually set it to print.
I gave the benefit of the doubt and continued reading in hopes that it was just a few typos but soon discovered that almost every paragraph contained misspelled words, lack of punctuation marks, improperly phrased questions and answers, that makes me think that your magazine doesn't care who it's read by.
This was the second time, in my 10 years as a Las Vegas resident, that I have opened the pages of your magazine to read an article that I thought would be interesting, exciting and fun to read, only to discover that you're either in a rush to print and distribute or you just don't give a damn. "Get it out and let them worry about the mistakes" seems to be a too real and common fact, amongst not only your periodical but also the other two major papers that service the Valley. Incidentally, I've cancelled subscriptions to both of those dailies for the same reason.
I prided myself, during my education, in learning correctly, how to spell, punctuate, pronunciation and context, that I find myself lusting for Reader's Digest, National Geographic and the like, for good stories that have been properly edited before they went to print.
I honestly believe that a periodical of your exposure (thousands of visitors to our Valley every day), with the power to project a powerful media presence to the rest of the nation and free world what Las Vegas is really about, instead comes off like a bunch of uneducated illiterates that only want to rush every story, regardless of how many errors it contains. I truly hope that in the future you take the proper remediation steps to elevate the stature of your weekly offering, that undoubtedly is read by millions every year. As for me I believe in second chances and yours just came and went.
Editor's note: You are mostly right, Hector. The story should not have contained so many errors. But you're wrong in suggesting we don't care. We do. We'd like nothing more than to achieve your zero-tolerance ideal. However, reality intrudes. In this case, thanks to a time crunch—the four-day Thanksgiving weekend took a monster bite from that particular production cycle—we were frantically transcribing the interview on deadline. Somewhere at the other end of the printing process, a press operator was screaming for text. Deadline was already behind us. We had to ship it. Not the best circumstances for mistake-avoidance. We present this not as an excuse but rather as an example of how factors other than a lack of caring can create the problems you—and we—rightly deplore.
The following letters arrived in response to Josh Bell's December 9 pan of Ocean's 12.
You probably won't even read this but I just had to tell you that you literally echoed EVERY thought I had about Ocean's 12.
Almost everyone I saw it with really liked it. So for a second there, I thought maybe I was crazy, but then I read your review.
I am a 23-year-old movie-loving actress living in LA. You definitely don't know me, but I read your review of Ocean's whatever the hell you wanna call it, and I must say you gave me back a modicum of my sanity.
I left the theater confused and, most importantly, angry. And a film experience shouldn't do that to a person. I wanna call it Ocean's 8 so they can give me back the $8 I spent seeing that piece of abysmal trash. I'm glad I went to a matinee.
ALERT: I'm about to go Benedict on Soderbergh. It was the most anticlimatic movie-going experience of my life (and I saw The Terminal the day it came out).
Thank you for giving a sound review and letting these Hollywood fools know what the real deal is ... now maybe they'll take their heads OUT of their asses.
There's been talk on the street lately that the downtown DTC has been selling 30-day bus passes without explaining to the people who buy them that it does not mean that they can stay on the bus all night (or ride endlessly). Homeless individuals have been spending their last $30 to buy a bus pass just so that they can ride the CAT bus at night and stay out of the cold weather (sometimes it's as low as 29 degrees). One woman I heard about was ordered to leave the bus one night (on Thanksgiving Eve) and was left stranded out in the cold, in an unfamiliar area (she could have froze to death or been raped if a kind Metro officer hadn't offered her assistance).
Perhaps the DTC should start telling homeless people about their limited bus pass policy; after all, most of them hang out there anyway.