The fallout from sportswriting's filthiest @#$%-up

Who remembers the Green Wave soccer story from 1997?

And now for the rest of the story ...

http://deadspin.com/the-fallout-from-sportswritings-filthiest-fuck-up-1797691830

 

I'm surprised there haven't been more of these as copy desks have been gutted and wages slashed. It's a miracle that newspapers still attract many people who still strive to do good work and take their task more seriously than management does.

 

I had never heard that story. There is really no excuse for something like that happening, but there probably isn't a sports writer around who hasn't accidentally let an f-bomb slip into print. I once wrote a brief on deadline about a local college basketball team's win in which they "converted x of x shits from 3-point range." It was on an inside page, and was overlooked by a lot of readers. Those who did notice it, though, understood correctly that it was a typo.

 

That was a really good read.

"And yet... Gannett" would be a great slogan.

 

Sure. That's your story and you are sticking to it!

 

I hadn't heard this either, or some how completely forgot about it. And I was in college when it happened and in the heart of all the main journalism classes after the case was decided. Crazy.

I might be reading too much into it, but it would almost seem the reporter never recovered.

 

I will never ever forget the phrase "Dixon sucks donkey dicks and doesn't wipe the shit off."

From the day I saw that (probably a couple of days or weeks after publication), I stopped putting any kind of jokes whatsoever in dummy type. If "hedy goes herey" got in the paper, I'd be the only one embarrassed.

 

I used to have XXX dummied under the mug shot box I pulled from my InDesign library. When I left that unchanged under a photo in the paper once (I didn't get any calls or complaints), I realized I should change it to YYY or something so people didn't think I was inferring some high school volleyball player had a side job in the adult film industry or something. Or that they were a Vin Diesel character. I think I changed it into Namey McNamerson eventually.

 

Considering the i and o keys are side-by-side, I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often.

 

Remember the story at the time, but didn't remember the details.

One question beyond the obvious: Why in the hell was what should have been a routine soccer preview being filed on such a tight deadline?

 

A local college paper ran 'bad-ass mother fucker' under a mug in an edition. Issue still hangs in the SID office.