The fact that people tend to skim rather than read carefully online makes it more important than ever to be clear in what we write. This morning on the BBC News site I ran across a couple of good examples of phrasing that may have been technically correct but could have been clearer.
The item about the death of James Last read, "The German-born musician's manager said he died at his home..."
Was it the manager or the musician who was German-born? It would have been clearer to write, "The manager of the German-born musician said..."
An article about alleged spying in Panama included this sentence: "Investigators said the wiretaps were carried out by members of Panama's National Security Council, who used sophisticated spy technology bought from Israel, which has since disappeared."
I guess we would have heard about it if it was Israel that disappeared, but sometimes it's a good idea to split a longer sentence like that. For instance, in this case: "...who used sophisticated spy technology bought from Israel. That equipment has since disappeared."