Warning: This is a complaint about H. Carroll's recent rant about newspapers. Please read no further if you are offended by such exchanges. First, as someone who only with great difficulty can resist correcting the grammar and spelling of strangers on the Internet, let me caution that one indulges in such activity at the risk of being, in turn, the recipient of corrections. Your gripes about the quality of writing in newspapers, first of all, are far too general. It should be fairly obvious that quality will vary all over the map. I don't know what your local newspaper was, but the newspaper I read is of consistently high quality and superior style. It isn't perfect, and errors therefore stick out like sore thumbs. The most frequent error involves the use of the verbs "lie" and "lay" and their tenses, which apparently confuse you as well (your newspapers LAY on the steps, not LAID); I don't know about you, but these words were covered in my sixth grade English classes, if not earlier. I think you'll find that most grammarians would prefer "a police officer who" rather than "a police officer that". By the way, thanks for spelling "grammar" correctly, rather than the incorrect way many subscribers to this list do. But speaking of the list, the fact that there is so much flagrant misuse of English on an allegedly professional list--combined with people aggressively defending their right to deviate from accepted usage--that it should be no wonder if there is a corresponding decline in newspaper English. I wonder, H. Carroll, how you can stand to be on a listserv like this if you have so much trouble with the inadequacies of newspapers? As far as being well-informed is concerned, your assertion that "fleeing is a shootable offense" is a simplistic, uninformed, inaccurate opinion. You would be well advised to read more crime and courtroom reportage to straighten out this little misunderstanding. I think the educated person must be aware of newspapers to be even moderately well informed. That doesn't mean you must believe everything you read--nor is there any reason to discount everything either. I accept what I read provisionally. Truth, like life, is subject to revision. --David Haberstich