wbjournal.com | June 12, 2017 | Worcester Business Journal 3
Editor, Brad Kane,
bkane@wbjournal.com
Digital Editor, Grant Welker,
gwelker@wbjournal.com
Staff Writers
Laura Finaldi, lfinaldi@wbjournal.com
(Manufacturing, higher education)
Emily Micucci,
emicucci@wbjournal.com (Health care)
Contributors
Susan Shalhoub
Livia Gershon
Research Director,
Stephanie Meagher,
smeagher@nebusinessmedia.com
Research Assistant, Heide Martin,
hmartin@nebusinessmedia.com
Production Director, Kira Beaudoin,
kbeaudoin@wbjournal.com
Associate Art Director,
Mitchell Hayes,
mhayes@wbjournal.com
Senior Accounts Manager
Matt Majikas,
mmajikas@wbjournal.com
Custom Publishing Project Manager
Christine Juetten,
cjuetten@wbjournal.com
Senior Special Accounts Manager
Mary Lynn Bosiak,
mlbosiak@wbjournal.com
Marketing & Events Manager
Kris Prosser, kprosser@wbjournal.com
COO, Mary Rogers,
mrogers@nebusinessmedia.com
Accounting Manager, Valerie Clark,
vclark@nebusinessmedia.com
Accounting Assistant, Rae Rogers,
rrogers@nebusinessmedia.com
Collections Manager, Raki Zwiebel,
rzwiebel@nebusinessmedia.com
Human Resources, Kim Vautour,
kvautour@nebusinessmedia.com
Publisher, CEO, Peter Stanton
pstanton@nebusinessmedia.com
Associate Publisher, Mark Murray
mmurray@wbjournal.com
President, Joseph Zwiebel
jzwiebel@nebusinessmedia.com
W
hen I was 11 years old,
Vice President Dan
Quayle judged a spelling
bee at an elementary
school and changed a student's correct
answer of "potato" into the slightly hilar-
ious "potatoe." Even at a young age, I
remember the political retribution being
swift and far-reaching. Quayle went from
being known a savvy political operator
to a doofus and a liability on President
George Bush's re-election chances.
Fast forward to May 31 this year and
Donald Trump's typo on Twitter about the
negative press "covefe" of his presidency
was met with eye rolls and laughs (largely
at his administration's attempts to pass
"covefe" off as a real word so Trump
wouldn't be seen as a doofus), but didn't
really impact him politically. Trump's abil-
ity to spell check before he tweets doesn't
even crack my top 50 concerns about his
presidency (strong arming the justice pro-
cess, ties with Russia, lack of concern for
the environment, disdain for social ser-
vice programs, blaise attitude toward
details, conflicts of interest with his busi-
nesses, treatment of people from different
socioeconomic backgrounds, etc., etc.,
etc., etc.), but the difference between the
reaction to "potatoe" vs. "covefe" says a lot
about how the world has changed.
I should be the last to cast stones.
Every two weeks, WBJ puts out a publi-
cation with roughly 20,000 words and
every Monday through Friday in
between, we put out web items totalling
about another 20,000. I can guarantee
you more than a handful have a gram-
matical error. About 30 years ago, WBJ
employed a team of copy editors and
proofreaders whose sole purpose was to
make sure every word and sentence was
correct. Today, those people don't exist. I
made the conscious decision when I
started in 2015 to eliminate the small
remaining part of copy editing budget in
favor of more reporting. When you have
four employees in the newsroom, you
have to make tough decisions, and I
chose to have more stories, rather than
fewer but better polished stories.
A flood of complaints about WBJ's
grammar never materialized, showing
people's attitudes toward errors in writ-
ten communication at a time when texts,
Remember when 'potatoe' was a big deal?
Worcester Business Journal (ISSN#1063-6595) is
published bi-weeky, 24x per year, including 5 special
issues in April, July, September, November and
December, by New Engand Business Media. 172
Shrewsbury St., Worcester, MA 01604. Periodicals
postage paid at Worcester, MA. Copyright 2015. All
rights reserved. Postmaster: Please send address
changes to: Worcester Business Journal, PO Box 330,
Congers, NY 10920-9894.
Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions are available for
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at 845-267-3008. Fax: 845.267.3478
Advertising: For advertising information, please call Mark
Murray at 508-755-8004 ext. 227. Fax: 508-755-8860.
Worcester Business Journal accepts no responsibility for
unsolicited manuscripts or materials and in general does
not return them to the sender.
Worcester Business Journal
172 Shrewsbury Street, Worcester, MA 01604
508-755-8004 tel.
• 508-755-8860 fax
www.wbjournal.com
A division of:
NEWS & ANALYSIS
DEPARTMENTS
4 Central Mass. In Brief
5 Flash Poll
12 Focus on Technology
14 The List: IT service providers
16 The Rainmaker
17 Know How
18 On the Move
19 Photo Finish
20 Business Leads
21 Opinion
22 Shop Talk: Fred Misilo, Fletcher Tilton
4 TJX shareholders vote down
diversity measures
Two proposals from Boston investment
firms to increase TJX's executive diversity
and pay equity were voted down by the
Framingham company's shareholders,
although the measures got more votes than
expected.
21 Embrace the fiduciary rule
Viewpoint Columnist Christopher P. Provo
argues against a May 15 Viewpoint column
from Nichols College, with Provo saying the
government should make financial advisors
more accountable to their clients.
I N T H I S I S S U E
Worcester Business Journal
WBJ
emails, tweets and posts are even more
widespread. This is why Dan Quayle is a
grammatical leper and Trump isn't. As a
society, we have decided faster, more effi-
cient communication is a positive trade-
off for a few grammatical errors.
- Brad Kane, editor
W
