During today’s historic coronation of King Charles III, covered live by all of the news networks, the American reporters on ABC, NBC and CBS all referred to Charles being “coronated.”
The proper term is “crowned.” Dozens of sources would have so informed them—if they had done minimal research. No, it is not a big thing. It is just one more example of how negligently and lazily our journalists perform their jobs.
And thus once again I have to ask: Why does anyone trust these people? How can anyone trust these people? Journalism is no longer a profession in the United States. It is self-indulgent, privileged club.
Ethics Alarms 
Query: Why did Joe Biden go to Ireland ten or so days ago, but he couldn’t attend the coronation of the UK constitutional monarch? Was that an intended slap in the face of the white supremacist British Royals?
I’d have to check. I don’t think other heads of state are invited to coronations. Ike didn’t go to Elizabeth’s.
Si.
Well, at least the Bidens got to grift a free trip to London out of it. I’m surprised Chelsea Clinton didn’t tag along with Dr. Jill.
Nope, I’m wrong: Biden was welcome, and some Brits are ticked: https://justthenews.com/world/europe/fri-president-joe-biden-possibly-less-popular-uk-us
I heard that Biden wasn’t going because no sitting president had attended a British coronation.
Whilst true, one has to look at the history. Aside from the very early Republic, there were no coronations in the 19th century.
I believe there was one in 1901, 1910, and two in 1936/1937. FDR wasn’t going to do it, and I cannot see a president spending weeks at sea.
1953? Ike was also brand new in the job.
So there really is little precedent either way.
Personally I think it’s just another instance of snubbing our allies while embracing our enemies.
Sorry, but that’s his pattern.
No president should go. This is a good tradition. Something Biden did right. But still too close for comfort to send FLOTUS
I don’t disagree with you.
I simply would maintain that citing past so-called precedents is bogus. No president had gone at least in part due to lack of opportunities.
Edward VIII abdicated before he was crowned. I can see the president not attending because of the huge security issue, which is already big enough.
Fittingly, Harry did very little, and was moved to the back of things. This day was not all about him, and he knows better than to try to upstage the king in his own castle, as it were. I watched the BBC version, since they were much more respectful of letting the event go forward without blather about DEI issues.
I think Harry’s attendance with barely saying a word and leaving almost immediately to help his son blow out his birthday candles represents the end of his relevance. There will be many more Royal events this year, including the Trooping of the Colour and the service of Remembrance, maybe even an investiture of the Prince of Wales, but his bag of tricks is empty. The British love a good jaw about gossip, but I think they love their sovereign more.
It was nauseating hearing the MSM hacks wishing and hoping that Charles welcomes Harry and his golddigger wife back into the fold to symbolize a “new monarchy” that embraces “diversity, yadayada.
It would be one thing if Meghan was a lovely person who just had some ideas that just didn’t jibe with tradition. However, not so.
Jack, this isn’t laziness — it’s just plain ignorance and not paying attention in life, because if you don’t know there is a different option you’re not going to check it out — and it occurs all the time now. Spell check even makes things worse, because the programs are guessing at what someone means and often throwing out aberrant spellings or word choices, and the user is generally too ignorant to tell the difference. Besides, isn’t the little AI program smarter than little ol’ “me”? Just as often, though, I know the writer is smart enough to know the right usage or word choice and simply didn’t have the time to proof their work. So much writing nowadays is under “right now” deadlines, so what gets put up — vomited out? — online is “good enough.” Nonetheless, as you say, enough of this from certain quarters and I no longer trust anything else the author/publication has to say, either. If they aren’t bothered to get the small things right, I will never trust them in the bigger things.
“If they aren’t bothered to get the small things right, I will never trust them in the bigger things.”
Correctamundo! Why is this so hard for so many to grasp?
Most of them were only confused as to whether Chas was going to be injected with carbon dioxide. Once they got that sorted out, they weren’t concerned about anything else.
It’s not a word I would have used reporting on the event but I did a little research this afternoon after reading your post, having seen BBC use the word “coronated” on a superimposed chyron subtitle during their coverage of the coronation. My thought was that it might be more common as a British term rather than American lingo.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the verb “coronated” is a synonym for “crowned”, but the OED describes its usage as “rare”. Which sounds like something “the Beeb” would do on such an occasion as this. I will speculate that the American broadcasters were monitoring BBC’s broadcast and copied them.
I think that just proves that British chryon-writers are a illiterate and error-prone as ours.
But, but, but … ‘coronated’ is perfect. The OED says it’s an alternate but rare usage. Old. English. Rare. Just like a crowning.
Some days I feel journalists should be hung.
Henry Higgins agrees with you.
Dammit. Too slow by over half a century.