The Pilotless Drone

A reader called the San Francisco Chronicle to complain about an article that contained the claim: “Forest Service begins testing pilotless drone." The reader objected to the phrase “pilotless drone.” He began to harangue the paper with questions: “Is there any other kind of drone, drone, other than a pilotless drone? Isn't that what a drone is: an unmanned aircraft? Don't you check these things? Don't you supervise the subeditors who write these headlines? Don't you do your job?”

After hurling these questions repeatedly, the caller fell into a sing-song chastisement: “Drone, drone, drone. Get it? Drone. Pilotless airplane. Drone, drone, drone — not pilotless drone!”

According to NPR’s Ina Jaffe, “It didn't take long for someone to notice the poetry in this . . . .” (my emphasis)

This then is the San Francisco Chronicle’s (or was it Ina Jaffe's?) idea of poetry? It might be catchy, cute, and rhythmic, but by no stretch of the imagination can the caller’s obsession with redundancy be called “poetry.” Of course, many terms get slung around carelessly as writers slog through their days stringing long lines of words together.

But the irate caller was correct in thinking that a newspaper should edit and revise to eliminate obvious errors. While that caller observed that the Chronicle was not doing its job when it allowed “pilotless drone” to pass, whoever decided to label the caller’s sing-song diatribe “poetry” was also not doing a thorough job.

Did the Chronicle take the caller seriously? Well, in a way—they decided to remix the “poetry” and fling it up on Youtube. And they are initiating a podcast channel calling it “Correct Me If I'm Wrong” to feature the “poetry” of other irate callers. The first episode, of course, will include the “poetry” of “The Pilotless Drone.”