Housing rebound to be prolonged: Harvard study

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Record foreclosures and limited access to credit will make it harder than usual to rebound from this U.S. housing market slump, the worst at least since World War Two, according to a Harvard University study on Monday.

Isn’t the point that the SLUMP will be prolonged not the rebound? The article is good but the headline is wrong - it says the OPPOSITE of what the article means.

Robert

Indeed. this headline made no sense. We fixed it: GBU Editor

Rebound photo by REUTERS/Adam Hunger

McCain seen as best choice for economy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s tax policies have given him an edge as the better man for the economy, various Wall Street experts said at this week’s Reuters Investment Outlook Summit.

But, against a backdrop of job losses and deteriorating home values, Wall Street is backing McCain’s Democratic rival, Barack Obama with cold, hard cash.

This headline reeks of bias. The headline is vague and not based on anything provable. I could just as easily have found a handful of Wall Street experts to say Obama is better for the economy. I encourage Reuters editors to keep objectivity in mind during a politically charged season. 

Peter J.

Several readers objected to this headline, especially in light of a second paragraph that said Wall Street is giving money to Obama, anyway. The headline was later changed to clarify that it was the view of people speaking at a Reuters Summit: GBU Editor 

REUTERS photo by Richard Carson

“South Pacific” wins big at Tony Awards

NEW YORK (Reuters) - “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific” dominated Broadway’s top honors, the Tony Awards, with seven prizes on Sunday, followed by the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “August: Osage County” with five wins.

Hey nice Tony awards story. One question, though — what won best musical (you know, traditionally the night’s top prize)?

Ron

Our story should have mentioned that “In the Heights” won Best Musical: GBU Editor

Producers of “In the Heights” Kevin McCollum (L), Jeffrey Seller and Jill Furman (R) pose backstage with actor Lin-Manuel Miranda (2nd L), after winning the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical at the 62nd Annual Tony Awards in New York, June 15, 2008. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Before the Bell: All About Lehman

Oil prices have rebounded somewhat, with U.S. crude above $135 a gallon, after a sharp fall in response to news that Saudi Arabia is pushing output to its highest level in decades.

I think you mean per barrel.

Mike O.

Yes. We corrected: GBU Editor

REUTERS photo by Rebecca Cook

Petrol pricey? Japanese invent car that runs on water

TOKYO, June 13 (Reuters Life!) - Tired of petrol prices rising daily at the pump? A Japanese company has invented an electric-powered, and environmentally friendly, car that it says runs solely on water.   

Genepax unveiled the car in the western city of Osaka on Thursday, saying that a litre (2.1 pints) of any kind of water — rain, river or sea — was all you needed to get the engine going for about an hour at a speed of 80 km (50 miles).

I was appalled to see a formerly reputable company like Reuters reporting this as if it’s just another car story. Either these people have overturned all known physics by producing a completely unheard-of energy source (that would revolutionise the entire world economy), or they’re running a scam.

But the reporter didn’t show the slightest bit of scepticism; she didn’t get a reaction from a scientist, or a physics teacher. She just gave free advertising to what is almost certainly a scam. Is this what Reuters has fallen to?

Barney

I reviewed your video story with utter amazement. I am completely stupified that the editors didn’t catch this completely bogus report. I would have thought an organization such as Reuters would have a science editor to do a sanity check on a story like this one. Any editor with even elementary common sense should have smelled something fishy about this video.

Daryl

This story about a “water-fueled” car is highly misleading. Accurate reporting would note that the energy used to extract hydrogen from water must come from another source. At the least it should be explained that this will not end the need for oil.

Mike

This story has proven beyond a doubt that Reuters does NO fact checking, employs NO critical thinking, and simply prints anything they are given (or perhaps paid?) to print. You have done serious harm to the respectibility of the Reuters name. Reuters has literally become a laughing stock on science / technology websites around the world because of this story.

Ken

Competent reporting involves more than being a non-critical conduit for a scammer. Too bad nobody at Reuters has taken high school chemistry or physics. If sombody had, they’d KNOW that it REQUIRES as much energy (slightly more because of losses) to break down the water as is produced by burning it. ConradIf this car really worked, it would be a perpetual motion machine. Most likely, this car has a battery between the fuel cell and motors that is slowly draining. If your reporter would have checked with any experts, they would have quicky and easily debunked the story, or at least provide your reporter with some tough questions. The real problem with this story is that now I question the fact checking behind every Reuters story. I stronly suggest you revisit this story and dig deeper!

P.C.

Come on. The only difference between Reuters and some wacko with a “news” site is reputation. If you run stories like this, you’re flushing yours down the toilet.

Mr. K

The text and video versions of this story drew more negative reader feedback than any other in recent memory. I think it’s safe to say that either much more critical investigating should have gone into the stories, or else they should not have been used at all: GBU Editor
 

Iowa’s capital swamped by Midwestern floodwaters

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - A levee holding back rising floodwaters broke and swamped Iowa’s capital on Saturday as officials across the Midwest reinforced levees, helped displaced residents and cleaned up the mess left by the region’s worst flooding in 15 years.

Nice headline. The capital of Iowa is Des Moines.  I’m changing my home page now…. that wasn’t a typo or a small grammatical error, thats stupidity in journalism.

Nick

The story did in fact say Des Moines is Iowa’s capital. The problem was, it said it in the fifth paragraph, leaving readers to presume that we thought the dateline, Cedar Rapids, was the capital. We should have been much clearer from the start: GBU Editor

REUTERS photo by Eric Thayer

Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain are study in contrast   

McCain posed in size zero jeans for the latest issue of Vogue. Obama, who has also appeared in the fashion magazine, was praised by style writers for the violet sheath dress she wore to her husband’s Democratic nomination victory rally and has been compared to former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

The blond, blue-eyed McCain is a former rodeo queen and cheerleader who holds a master’s degree in special education from the University of Southern California. She grew up in a wealthy family in Phoenix and is heiress to Hensley & Co, one of the largest U.S. distributors for brewing giant Anheuser-Busch.

America has had nontraditional first ladies before. They included Rosalynn Carter, wife of Jimmy Carter who sat in on Cabinet meetings, and Hillary Clinton, who was named by her husband to lead a health-care task force.

Starting this piece with detailed descriptions of the wives’ style, dress, and dress sizes was sexist in the extreme, and was an excellent example of how the news media contributes to the basest, most culturally ignorant stereotypes that are among the problems plaguing political coverage.

What relevance is McCain’s dress size to ANYTHING? The color of Obama’s dress? To belabor the obvious: in a news feed, the 3rd of 4th sentence about a male candidate, or the husband of a female candidate, would NEVER mention the color of his suit, his eye color, or his waistline.

Deak

To point out McCain being blue eyed, and not so indicating Obama’s eye color indicates that the author directly or indirectly slants or used their own perspective about color.

Marcus

I found your article on Cindy McCain and Michele Obama offensive and unbalanced. Saying Michelle Obama is “non-traditional” is ridiculous. She is a working mother, and that is what a majority of American women actually are like. Cindy McCain is an heiress to a fortune, independently wealthy and separates her tax returns from her husband’s. I would hardly call this “traditional”.

B.T.

This profile drew a fair amount of reader criticism, especially the information on McCain’s eyes and hair. Some readers faulted us for including it at all, while others objected to describing her hair and eye color without describing Obama’s: GBU Editor 

McCain: REUTERS photo by Mike Stone

Obama: REUTERS photo by Chris Keane

U.S. video game sales up 37 percent in May: NPD

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. sales of video game hardware and software were $1.12 billion in May, up 37 percent from a year earlier, with Take-Two Interactive Software Corp’s ”Grand Theft Audio 4″ the best-selling title for the month, market researcher NPD said in a report on Thursday.

This article says “Grand Theft Audio 4″ and I believe it’s supposed to be Grand Theft Auto 4.

V.O.

Indeed. We corrected: GBU Editor

REUTERS photo by Lucas Jackson

Bush urges diplomacy with Iran but all options open

Before sitting down for talks, Bush and Merkel strolled shoulder to shoulder through the sprawling garden in Meseberg, Bush in a business suit and tie and Merkel in a pants suit, chatting amiably and looking relaxed. 

What does “a business suit and tie, or a pant suit” add to the tenor of the report?  My point is, does the content of any political message change based on the clothing worn by the individual? If I wanted to read about fashion, I would go to the fashion section or read Vogue.

Mermaid

I wouldn’t read anything into it. It’s just a bit of color, though not very significant color. In this day of instant multimedia feeds, where readers could see video and still photos of the two walking together, it probably didn’t add much to the story: GBU Editor

REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski

Chuck Berry won’t sing for ‘Johnny’ in US election

 ”In the ’50s there were certain places we couldn’t ride on the bus,” Berry said. “And now there is a possibility of a black man being in White House. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last,” he said, quoting the words of a Negro spiritual song famously invoked by assassinated civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr.

I can only hope that the reporter and editors on this story are Brazilian and therefore unfamiliar with how archaic and offensive the term “Negro” is considered here in the U.S.  Seriously.

Kate

We did not use the term “Negro,” we used the term “Negro spiritual,” which is still in wide use. You can go to negrospiritual.com, you may order numerous recordings of Negro spirituals from amazon.com, and so on. And, in a forum which attracts vocal and varied opinions about our news content daily, I believe yours was the only e-mail we received about this subject: GBU Editor