Ian Stewart: Sense, rather than sensationalism, was this story's intent

SOMETIMES in journalism it is quite easy to get carried away. If a story is playing big in other newspapers and on television, you can get caught up in that wave. The story sort of takes on a tone of its own – it's not mass hysteria, but perhaps mass hype, and it is part of our job to defend against that and not to fall in to the trap.

Robert Dow writes: "From time to time I find what seem to be elements of sensationalism in some of the paper's reporting.

"In today's edition (9 March] there appears the headline 'Woman holds hammer at Goody's hospital bedside'. Paragraph 1 goes on to change 'holds' to 'armed with', which suggests presumption of possible intended assault.

"Paragraph 6 elevates the incident to 'attack' level, yet your report ends with a police statement that the woman arrested had been released, and that there would be no further action.

"While acknowledging that this falls gratifyingly short of the front page of one of today's tabloids, which shrieks "Maniac attacks Jade with hammer", I still feel that it is careless by the standards I expect from The Scotsman."

I think it is fair to say that if any unauthorised person turns up at a hospital bedside carrying a hammer then some questionable motives can be inferred. It would be safe to assume some element of hostility. Our headline was absolutely accurate and I would say fairly straight.

If the person had been carrying a knife or any other implement whose sole use is as a weapon, then "armed with" is accurate. In these circumstances it is probably unlikely that a hammer is going to be regarded simply as a tool – it is not possible to know exactly what use for the implement the person carrying it had in mind, but carpentry seems unlikely. Although those words do suggest the "presumption of possible intended assault" I think that is probably a reasonable suggestion.

Where we overstepped the mark was using the word "attack". Obviously simply standing by a bed holding a hammer does not constitute an attack, and that was inaccurate.

However, I do not think it was sensationalism, because it was only used in a paragraph well down the story. Surely a definition of sensationalism is making a big splash out of it, and I do not think we did that.

I WAS given an involuntary trip down memory lane when a very rare word popped up. The moment I read the e-mail from regular contributor Steuart Campbell I was immediately whisked back 35 years or so to a childhood pleasure that I had completely forgotten about.

Mr Campbell wrote: "Sorry, but why does Allan Hall write 'admitting to defrauding…' in his article about the Swiss Gigolo (10 March]? Isn't this what Fowler describes as confusion between an infinitive and a gerund? "Should that not be either 'admitting defrauding', 'admitting having defrauded' or 'after having admitted defrauding'?"

Suddenly I was once again in the world of Molesworth and "hello clouds hello sky" Fotherington Thomas. The books by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle on school life, which included How to be Topp and Back in the Jug Agane, were the only place I had seen the word "gerund". If I remember correctly, it was depicted as a small furry animal.

It is of course a noun with an "ing" ending which has some of the qualities of a verb. I'm not sure that what Alan Hall wrote included a gerund, but it was certainly pretty clumsy.

• If you have a complaint about editorial in The Scotsman contact Ian Stewart on 0131 620 8633 or at 108 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8AS or e-mail [e-mail]