Oversight in Phoenix Story

In Friday’s USA Today, the newspaper ran a story on Joaquin Phoenix’s sudden career change from acting to music. Phoenix showed up at “The Late Show with David Letterman” with long hair, a beard and wearing sunglasses. He gave the impression of being out of touch. The article reports on that, his new movie and the shooting of a documentary about his transition from acting to making music.

Or maybe it’s not a documentary. The paper makes it uncertain what Phoenix thinks. It explains, “But he doesn’t what they’re doing a documentary, even though Affleck and a crew are tagging along with Phoenix as he does interviews.” “But he doesn’t what they’re doing a documentary, even though Affleck and a crew are tagging along with Phoenix as he does interviews.” Microsoft Word has again failed. It doesn’t underline any part of that sentence, especially the fourth word, which has no function in the sentence.

That “what” could mean a lot, but as it is doesn’t mean anything and yields the sentence ineffective. Did somebody forget to type “call?” This would make the phrase “call what.” As in, “I don’t call what Letterman is doing funny.” It could be that the writer meant to write, “think what they’re doing is a documentary.” This probably makes the most sense, but it also calls for the biggest change, adding “think” followed later by an “is.”

Maybe an editor was sitting in his office late at night, a little tired, a lot ready to go home, and reading copy. The writer of this article put in a wordy verb phrase here, something like, “He doesn’t live to personally torture anyone who thinks this way, but he has threatened everyone who sees who calls what they’re doing a documentary.” Our editor, after letting out a deep sigh and burying face in hands, erased the whole phrase with “what” and promised to come back to it later. But no one did. (The online edition has been edited, adding "call.")

Ignoring the mistake leaves the paragraph worthless, except we now know Casey Affleck is following him around with a crew. A small oversight wastes a paragraph. Sure, the following paragraph clears up Phoenix’s thought, but I see it as a good example of how editing is needed to keep a story clear.