DR News Reporters: do they know Spanish?

It was pointed out to me in Spanish class at PUCMM that Dominican journalists are NOT a good example to follow for learning proper spanish. Grammar and spelling can be all over the place.

Note: This is the spanish equivelant of English literature, not spanish as a foreign language.

Most of these so called journalists are in fact no more than a bunch of stone throwing and gossiping chickens, whom are allowed to peck here and there within any given parameter in the Dominican society and cultural aspects of the country.

If you do a little research you would find out in a jiffy that many lack a college degree, worst yet some only received a formal education till the 8th grade, as it was very common back in the early 50's and 60's for people to get only enough knowledge in the state imparted schooling system to interact properly within the collective of society, therefore the mannerisms and colloquial mishaps commonly found in a criollo conversation can be widely spotted in the columns of many if not all local periodicals, rather this same characters had to learn on the job as they progressed within the ranks and page placement in their respective journals, many well respected journalist fall within this category.

The census data, a terrible and quite self explanatory case in itself, just goes to show that the levels of editorial quality in Dominican journals have a steep learning curve to master as of today, then again some articles in international papers are not that far ahead as well, the only good aspect (if it can be safely exposed as it) of Dominican journalists it's the very fragile thigh rope they have to walk on, since Dominican laws allow for a less freedom of legal prosecution of defamation and misinformation, rather an unusual aspect in contrast with the reigning political atmosphere, but nevertheless a welcomed safety net for those whom dare have a sharp tongue and don't keep it holstered when need be.

mondongo said:

Congratulations to hoy.com and to DR1 for not butchering the Census data reported by the DR authorities.


This is what elcaribecdn.com had to say:

"En los ?ltimos diez a?os la poblaci?n dominicana creci? un 2.73 por ciento lo que presenta 1,269,151 habitantes m?s que en el 1993, seg?n los datos suministrados por la Oficina Nacional de Estad?sticas (ONE)."

The people at CDN need to take some arithmetic lessons.

Now its diariolibre.com's turn:

"El censo del 1993 registr? un crecimiento poblacional de 2.17 por ciento y en el 1981 un 2.98 por ciento, lo que representa que por primera vez se ha producido una baja en la tasa de crecimiento medio anual de la poblaci?n en comparaci?n con los a?os anteriores, registrando solo 1.79 por ciento."

Huh? Did the writer actually understand what he wrote?

Is it me....or are Dominicans news writers (at least the those on the net) some of the worst Spanish writers that you read on the net? Have they ever met a run-on sentence they did not like? SOMEBODY PLEASE educate these people!!!!!!!

PS I am throwing stones here despite the fact that I live in a Spanish glass house!!

Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong here but If I can still handle my %'s the numbers exposed by your post are correct, in a 10 year span you have a reported growth of a total 27.3% in correlation to the last reported decade of 21.7%? were do this numbers fail? try and find the total amount of people on census for 1993 by a simple formula with the numbers given to you and the % provide, and I believed the percentage is quite correct as well as the comment on the journal.

The 1981 census reported a total growth for the decade of 2.98% or 29.8% for the decade and supports the claim that in the decade until 1993 the total growth was 21.7% and therefore a 8.1% total decrease, or as the number reported it's 1.79% which it's the median for a decade using the census + and - differential ratios of adjustment, am I wrong here, or do this numbers actually make sense?

I always asked myself why the hell they had to teach census data along with percentage probabilities in school, at least I made use of it today for once!

just kidding!

Mondongo, one other possibility to consider is that the person entering the information just can't TYPE, and hits the "1" and the "2" key in quick succession, the proof-reader (if they even exist) doesn't catch the error, and it goes directly to print.

This holds true in both of your examples, and an increase in population of "269,151" would meet the parameter of a 2.73% increase.

There a lot more serious errors in their translations of the news than the examples cited. I have noticed in many, many cases that Dominican "journalists" have very weak or non-existent mathematics skills. That goes for Dominican politicos too, especially when VOTE TALLIES (adding a "1" in the front of the tally), hehehe.