Latest Media Flub: What's Wrong with This Submarine Story?

November 20, 2007, BOSTON - Northrop Grumman awarded $85 million contract for U.S. Navy submarine work (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) Corp. said Tuesday it was awarded a $85 million contract option from the U.S. Navy to work on submarines located in Los Angeles, Ohio, Seawolf, and Virginia.
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The above excerpt is a stark example of defective journalism and why M.E. believes journalists should be certified to report only in their area(s) of specialization, or required to admit amateurism or to include disclaimers of working knowledge in areas in which they are not specialists.

The reporter who wrote the above may be qualified to report financial news, but he/she tends to be misleading for the unwary when it comes to Navy submarine classes and U.S. GEOGRAPHY.

This Idaho Bubblehead is the only guy I know who was probably born in a location called Seawolf (would that be a U.S. city or a state)? Wait a minute, maybe there is still a submarine shipyard in Ohio? No, that was in Wisconsin. Even the Manitowoc shipyard closed in 1968. Failures of our fourth estate (the press) are rarely so obvious. Which is more frightening, uninformed journalists or uninformed voters who must depend upon them? Why do we need more reliable reporting when voters cannot be required to be able to read? How do illiterates mark their ballots? Who gives them such instructions? Relax, we have TV?!