comma with compound subject (headline): Moratinos, Rice show concern

[rich7]

Moratinos, Rice show concern about RCTV case

Moratinos said the Venezuelan issue was one of the topics he addressed Friday with Rice during her official visit to Spain. (Photo: Efe)

EL UNIVERSAL
Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Ángel Moratinos and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday voiced “concern for the shutdown” of Venezuelan private television station RCTV, as it involves “a restriction on freedom of expression,” Efe reported.
“We have expressed our willingness and wish that the rights to freedom of expression and free access to information are restored for all. Venezuelans who want to use news outlets,” said Moratinos in a joint news conference with Rice in Madrid.

why does the writer use a comma here instead of "and" ?

 

[tomandjerryfan]

Hi rich7,

Are you referring to the two complete sentences or the blue fragment at the top? If you're talking about the fragment, it's hard to tell from the context how the comma is being used. Could you please post more of the sentence or give some insight as to where you saw this fragment? It might help in determining the use of the comma.

Thanks!

Edit: Now that I think about it, it looks like the title of an article in which the author is referring to the people involved in the story by their last names. If this is the case, then the use of the comma here is valid when omitting the "and" to indicate a reference to two different people and not to someone whose name is Moratinos Rice.

 

[Matching Mole]

Where is the comma used instead of and? Did you change it to the and in blue? If that was a comma then it was wrong. Perhaps there were three people mentioned originally and the comma was not changed due to an oversight.

If this is not what you mean, then you need to clarify.

 

[rich7]

The title of this article is "Moratinos, Rice show concern about RCTV case", there are only two people involved, so the use of the comma is not correct, am I right? or this case is one those of style?

 

[liliput]

Perhaps they were trying to save space, headlines tend to brief. However, I agree it looks shoddy.

 

[rich7]

So Tom, you are implying that when you refer to people by their last name you can use a comma to separate them regardless of the number.

 

[tomandjerryfan]

To my knowledge it's an acceptable use of the comma for clarification. This works regardless of number, but I would find it strange if there were more than two names.

 

[Matching Mole]

It's simply headline abbreviation; news-speak. Note that they use the present simple "show" rather than the past, which is typical of this style.