But this is supposed to be interns learning about the life of a professional journalist — the Privila webpage says “Work with seasoned EDITORS to IMPROVE your writing” (their caps) … well it’s not especially seasoned to let by material that fails to make numbers match up, that is unable to distinguish homonyms, that mangles time, or that misses out important words from sentences, thereby making them into inanities.

The examples I gave were a few quick and easy selections that anyone can see are wrong — go and read some of the articles (and remember there’s over 5000 to choose from) and then ask yourself whether any of them made a positive contribution to your life? and whether any “seasoned editor” is likely to approve of many of those you read?

There may be worse writing out there, but that doesn’t make this any better, nor does it improve the experience that the interns volunteer for. So I stick to my view that this is all about making money from adverts in a tacky manner (and that’s before one considers the spamming), and everything else is indistinguishable from a figleaf, and not an especially convincing figleaf, at that.

As to the writing, that was a general comment rather than being aimed at yourself particularly. However, if there are failures of grammar or spelling or the use of subtly the wrong word then that — although the writer’s fault originally — eventually must be put down to the sub-editing; and there’s very little evidence of that process having occurred.

Some random sentences, all from bustem.com, from several different authors (Google will find the context if necessary) will illustrate what I mean:

• “Email viruses are attached to email messages. It reproduces itself by…”
• “Not only do they work in improving web design, but they also help their clients improve their other corporate identity packages such as business cards and stationary, company logos, …”
• “They believe it’s unfair of the US government to apply the law to the Internet since it wasn’t invented during the time the law was written.”
• “This is why apartment Internet security and home Internet security are important; identity is no laughing matter for those who have experienced it, and it is real and not the work of some imaginative science fiction writer.”

Mind you, the notion that identity is no laughing matter chimes well with Markus Kuhn’s view of the identification circus

I knew that the internship would be unpaid. The reason I took it was to get experience with writing articles on the internet. Since then, I am a full time freelance writer doing most of my work on the internet. So, it wasn’t all a loss.

Also, I did have an editor. I would put my first draft up on a website and they would tell me what I need to change. After my second draft, they would also change things at will (which is something all editors have a right to do.)

As for the spam, I had no idea they did that. I don’t think they were doing it when I was involved (which was many months ago.)

You talk of spelling and grammar being an issue, but was that across the board with all articles? I like to think that mine weren’t like that. If they weren’t, by your opinion, then it’d be good if you stated so in your article. You make it sound as if I wrote poorly, which I don’t think I did. Unless, of course, the keywords for the article prevented it from sounding good. That’s something I really had no say about.