A Word, Please: To whom do we attribute these errors?

A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times reported: “Edric Dashell Gross, whom police said is a transient known to frequent Santa Monica, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.”

And with that, we have another entry for our Don’t Use “Whom” Unless You Know What You’re Doing file. This sentence contains a very common error that serves as a good cautionary example. The “whom” in The Times story is wrong. It should be “who.”

But wait, you’re thinking, it’s the object of “police said.” And because “whom” is an object, the sentence is correct.

Nope. In The Times’ sentence, the object of “said” isn’t a single word. It’s a whole clause. And clauses need subjects.

MORE: Read past columns on all things grammar from June Casagrande >>

Look at two simplified twists on the sentence: “Police said him is a transient” and “Police said he is a transient.”

What’s the object of the verb “said”? If it’s a single word, the object pronoun “him” would be correct: Police said him is a transient. But clearly, the thing that police said was a complete clause, with the subject “he” performing the action in the verb “is”: Police said he is a transient.

Who and whom work the same way as he and him.

He and who are subjects. They perform the action in a verb. “He runs fast.” “Who runs fast?”

Whom and him are objects. They receive the action of a verb: “Joe hired him.” “Joe hired whom?” They also serve as objects of prepositions. “In Joe, we have a true leader.” “In whom do we have a true leader?”

But none of that matters when the object is a whole clause, as is illustrated so clearly in the incorrect “Police said him is a transient.”

Another problem I noticed in media reporting this week isn’t about grammar at all. It’s about sourcing — a topic quite clear to every student who ever passed Journalism 101. Or so you’d think.

Here’s a sentence I noticed in a story on CNN.com about the recent heat wave.

“It’s the hottest start to summer ever in three states — California, New Mexico and Arizona — according to CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.”

This sentence contains a problem that, by itself, isn’t a concern for most readers. But it’s part of an alarming trend in news reporting: Journalists not understanding the basics of news reporting.

Specifically, I’m referring to the phrase that begins with “according to.”

This method of attributing information is perfectly appropriate in some cases. “The bill will be introduced on Thursday, according to Sen. Jones, author of the legislation.” But in other cases, it’s not appropriate: “The bill was introduced on Thursday, according to Sen. Jones.”

What’s the difference? In the first example, the information cannot be independently verified by the reporter. He has no choice but to pass off responsibility onto someone else: the person who knows better than anyone else whether this event will really happen.

But the news reported in the second sentence, because it’s in the past, is now verifiable by the reporter. He has no excuse for placing responsibility for its accuracy on another person. It’s his job to confirm that it happened then report the event in his own words, with his own reporting as the official source.

I see this confusion a lot in the advertiser-sponsored feature articles I edit. I once had to explain why it’s not appropriate to write “Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, according to Wikipedia.”

I wasn’t explaining this to the writer. I was explaining it to an editor who’d already approved the article.

As the lines between journalism, amateur writing and advertiser-sponsored “content” continue to blur, it might be good to keep this in mind: When a reporter doesn’t know which information to attribute to a third-party and which to back up with his own byline, it’s a red flag that you may not be reading real journalism at all.

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JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.