Thought you’d be intrigued by something that happened at Torchlight Today.

Anyone who knows me, particularly our contributors, are well aware that I’m exacting when it comes to matters of spelling and grammar. Some even refer to me affectionately as the “Grammar Nazi.” As editor, it’s my job. It’s also a pet peeve.

I look through a number of online news outlets on a daily basis including the Post, the Times, The Daily Mail, Fox, CNN and MSNBC to name but a few.

Nothing drives me around the bend faster than a glaring error in print, particularly from one of the majors. These companies are making a fortune, is it too much to expect that their writers proof their material before publishing it?

This morning while reading an article on Fox about Senator Manchin chastising his fellow Democrats for not standing during the President’s address, I saw the following: “Manchin stook out like a sore thumb among his colleagues as he was one of just a few red-state Democrats who applauded”

I burst out laughing. Stook? “He Stook out like a sore thumb?” Once I composed myself I brought this grotesque error to the attention of our group as an example of what we never want to see in our posts.

Dolph Santorine, a contributor from West Virginia and a staunch supporter of Manchins seemed at first to think I was attacking the Senator. I explained that my problem wasn’t with the Senator, it was with the guy who wrote the article.

I left it there as I had other things to attend to. Later I received a cryptic message from Dolph which read, “It’s now stuck.” I replied, “What’s stuck?” not having a clue what he was talking about. He explained that he’d contacted the writer at Fox and made him aware of the typo. I checked, and sure enough the offending word had been replaced.

So it turns out that through the good offices of a writer from our virtually unknown blog we actually had an impact on a story appearing on a very prestigious website.

While Torchlight may not be well known, Dolph is. It so happens he’s a major player in West Virginia politics and I’ve no doubt he politely made the writer at Fox aware of it.

This speaks volumes about the caliber of people who have assembled to bring you what we hope is fast becoming one of your favorite online publications.

Thanks for reading,

Your friends at Torchlight