Punctuation is important when it comes to reporting on the city budget

Listen, I don’t want to be one of those guys who whines about every little editorial error, and I know I’ve already given the folks at the CBC at hard time over their seemingly minor decisions. But take a look at this, would you?

“The City of Toronto payroll is going to go up – not down – as promised by Mayor Rob Ford.”

That’s the story’s lead sentence at the time of this writing, and because of the way it’s been punctuated, it’s factually incorrect. It should read as follows:

“The City of Toronto payroll is going to go up – not down, as promised by Mayor Rob Ford.”

The first sentence means “Ford promised to create more jobs at City Hall, and sure enough, that’s what he’s doing.” The second sentence means “Ford promised he’d trim the fat at City Hall and cut a bunch of jobs, but according to budget documents released this week, it looks like we can just throw that one on the pile of campaign promises he’s managed to break within his first few weeks in office.”

The second sentence is the correct one; it should be used in place of the first. Oh, and be sure to use an asterisk if you plan to argue that David Miller is somehow to blame.

Boy, I’m really not doing my part to counter the whole “Everyone who didn’t vote for Rob Ford is an elitist intellectual snob” thing, am I?

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