Indulged or engaged?

Mahesh Vijapurkar has this advice for reporters and sub-editors:

In its January 28, 2011 Mumbai edition, page 3, the Daily News & Analysis (DNA) has an item headlined Senior citizen gets 2 conmen arrested for cheating her. It quotes a policeman saying she “indulged” the conman “in talks”. Both are not appropriate in the context used.

• Indulged – this verb is all about letting the others have their way, like with a child, or do something you know would give you pleasure, like in eating a sweet to which you are partial. The reporter should have used the word engaged.
• In talks – this has an altogether different meaning that mere talking or be in an ordinary conversation. Two companies can be in talks, a series of exchanges over a period of time. Two countries, for instance, India and Pakistan can be engaged in talks over the issue of visas. But the woman who wanted to con the conmen into an arrest had only engaged them in talk.

Newspapers have sub-editors just to avoid this kind of confusion in usage. Because two – the premise being that the  reporter and the desk both -  cannot go wrong at the same time. But they did.

The link to the story is : http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?edorsup=Main&queryed=9&querypage=3&boxid=30677840&parentid=133667&eddate=01/28/2011