Paper Monitor
12:45 UK time, Wednesday, 1 July 2009
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
In journalism school, baby reporters learn shorthand. Paper Monitor's tutor was the well-upholstered Mary, fond of reprimanding her charges for balancing notebooks on knees and for insufficient practice.
And baby reporters are very fond of complaining about these classes, with the exception of a few swots who sit right at the front and have little competitions with themselves in the speed tests.
Once baby reporters stretch their wings and fly the coup, they realise Mary and the swots were right all along. Shorthand is useful, even in the age of mini digital recorder thingees. Batteries run down, you know.
But while you might scribble down every word uttered at, for instance, the press day for Jeff Koons' first UK exhibition, it can be a struggle to decipher the squiggles once back at your desk.
Which is what one imagines might have happened when the Daily Telegraph's arts hack typed up , quoting Koons as saying: "In our own life we're inflatable. We exhale and it's a simple death." (Paper Monitor's emphasis.)
But the Independent's quotes him thus: "We take a breath in, which is a symbol of optimism, and take a breath out, which is a symbol of death." (Paper Monitor's emphasis.)
Which is correct? Koons is an artist, so he said "symbol". For definite.
While the official shorthand outlines for "symbol" and "simple" are different (see illustration on right), perhaps you can see how a reporter in a hurry might miswrite, or misread, one for the other.
Of course, it's possible that shorthand didn't come into it, and perhaps low batteries on a digital recorder thingee is to blame.
Meanwhile, page 11 of the Daily Mail carries news that one of the dateless 20p coins has sold on a popular online auction site for £7,100 ().
It rather undermines the London Mint advert a few pages later, offering £50 for the new style coins missing the date stamp.
The 
