Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Brainchild Is Father to the Man?

In an otherwise informative obituary of Reese Cleghorn, longtime dean at the University of Maryland's school of journalism, Lauren Wiseman wrote in Tuesday's Washington Post:
Mr. Cleghorn was the brainchild behind the school's successful student-operated wire service, Capital News Service, which launched in 1990 with bureaus in Washington and Annapolis. The news service stories appear in Maryland newspapers and on the McClatchy news service, which has national distribution.
No, no, no!

Capital News Service was Mr. Cleghorn's brainchild. Mr. Cleghorn was the brain behind the Capital News Service.

Does the Washington Post library lack a dictionary? Do editors look at the obituaries before they go to press?