1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

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

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Inky_Wretch, Aug 16, 2017.

  1. MNgremlin

    MNgremlin Active Member

    In getting ready for our football tabs two years ago, I made a nice save. Nothing like some of the stories here, but it wouldn't have been a good look.

    Instead of attributing a quote to Blackjacks coach Larson, it was in the copy as Black coach Larson.
     
  2. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    We used to do that at the college paper with departing seniors. We'd run ATP season money leaders fifty deep and put the seniors in the bottom of it. I still have mine. I was 46th.

    We also did it one time at my old shop to smoke out a plagiarist at another paper. We slid in a fake name in a preps football box with 1 carry for 0 yards. When his Sunday edition came out, it was in there. Our EE called the owner/publisher/editor and raised hell. The writer then began a campaign of writing columns about how we (the 40k circ.) didn't care about their town of 17k which was served by their 2k, six-day afternoon paper. He kept it up until we bought that paper. Then he quit in disgust. Years later, he sent in a resume for an opening.

    Sumbitch still works in local media, now for an online-only deal. And 20-plus years later, he's still stealing content.
     
  3. fossywriter8

    fossywriter8 Well-Known Member

    Back when my former weekly still used actual film cameras, I took a pic at the local Catholic high of a guest speaker. My angle was from her right and slightly behind so you could see her and most of the kids in the gym seats. The pic was for a front page story.
    I snapped four pics.
    In three of them, three boys sitting together each have the index finger and middle finger of one hand on either side of their mouths with their tongues sticking out.
    No one at the office caught it until the guy who assisted our layout person happened to see it and mention it.
    Luckily, a fourth pic didn't have gesture and the switch was quickly made.
    However, the gesture had to be explained to our editor, who happened to be a graduate of the school. She was not pleased.
     
    Doc Holliday likes this.
  4. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    In my night cops days I would be sent to school board and borough council meetings when they didn't have enough people, with the rationale being that they'd call me out of it if something big broke. One borough council was notorious for it's marathon meetings which we would have to duck out of early to run back to the office and make deadline. At one meeting, after an hour and a half of listening to themselves talk about it, they voted on a plan to fix the swimming pool at the local municipal park. It was your typical small town government bullshit: 90 minutes to do something that could have been done in 10.

    I burst into the newsroom at about 10:15 p.m. for an 11 p.m. deadline on about 18 inches. I had a really good working relationship with the copy desk, joking and cutting up regularly. As I sit down at my desk, flipping through my notebook and obviously trying to lock in and write, one of the deskers yells over, "Give me a headline!" I fired back, "These motherfuckers are fixing the pool!"

    As I'm putting the finishing touches on my article and about to send it over that same editor drops off one of the 11 by 14 proofs of the page. On it is a picture of the pool, a big white hole where my story is to go, and the headline "Motherfuckers to Fix Pool." I still have that page somewhere. No, it never made it to print. Yes, it's dawned on me many times how easily it could have.
     
    studthug12, Vombatus, BigRed and 2 others like this.
  5. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    I don't think I've typed the named Walt or Walter correctly in 15 years.
     
    jr/shotglass and dixiehack like this.
  6. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    I did something similar with the rec softball roundup when I was at a weekly, going against another paper with a less-savory reputation. Every week I'd deliberately maul a few words and tell the news side "this week's designated typos are ..." Sure enough, they'd always be reproduced in the other paper.
     
    Inky_Wretch likes this.
  7. Ice9

    Ice9 Active Member

    My absolute favorite part of this whole story:

    The Gallatin News Examiner was toast.

    “It’s probably the worst case of libel I’ve ever seen,” says Kelly. “I’ve seen mistakes made, I’ve seen people allegedly placed in places where they never were. But I’d never seen a case involving extreme profanity and sexual coarseness that was actually published, about a young man unknown to everyone until it went to print.”

    Kelly, as well as William Moore, Lassiter’s attorney, presumed Gannett would settle. The company had no case whatsoever, and the specter of a drawn-out trial would potentially damage the reputation of the entire 91-newspaper chain. And yet...

    “The sheer stupidity still shocks me,” Kelly says. “They decided to fight.”


    One of the most blatant, shoe-in cases of libel ever and instead of settling out of court Gannett opted to FIGHT IT!!!!

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

    If that isn't the most Gannett move of all-time, I don't know what is. Don't ever let anyone tell you the Gods don't have a sense of humor.
     
  8. pseudo

    pseudo Well-Known Member

    A similar story from a few years ago:
    Rival small-town weeklies printed at the same press, each uploading content into their own folders on the publisher's server. The owner/editor of one paper finds a way to get into the other's files and "borrows" them to save himself some work on tax-sale listings, not realizing they'd gotten wise to his thievery and set him up. Hilarity ensues:
    [​IMG]
    Just My Two Cents: Who is the Real Victim?
    Echo vows Litigation in Endeavor News Scandal; Commissioner says he will 'Protect the People' he serves
     
  9. RedCanuck

    RedCanuck Active Member

    I still remember when I was a high school intern working at my local paper. I was helping the editor paginate one night, I think we were late approaching deadline and he told me a story was ready to go... so I plugged it in and printed it off. It was about a new daycare centre opening in town, and I'm pretty sure the copy went out with XXX daycare centre is opening... and the daycare is seeking volunteers to carry out XXX activities with children, or something similar. (XXX being his code for something he had to research or check and add to the store later) A good lesson to always read what you're slapping into the paper.

    About the most difficult mistake I've had since then involved a story about a paranoid schizophrenic murdering his mother that somehow ran next to a Mother's Day advertising special. I started to check the advertising run sheets a bit more closely after that one.

    As much as I've often thought about inserting jokes into copy, I just don't think I'd ever do that because I'd be paranoid I might miss them.

    And, I too, was a bit surprised with the comment above that every sports journalist has let an F-bomb slip into print. I just can't see it. I've purposely allowed them in news coverage when I thought they were relevant, but I can't most being that negligent.
     
  10. MNgremlin

    MNgremlin Active Member

    My first boss told me that if he put something on the page that needed to be updated before sending it, he would change the font color to red so he would know to fix it before sending pages. Is this not a common or recommended practice? It seems issues like the one above could be avoided if something like that was done.
     
  11. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    When I'd do early layout on Fridays before heading out to football, I'd do dummy heads like "Podunk gamer here sljlajsdljgha hdgadgfds." Always figured spellcheck would pick up the gibberish better than "Podunk kicks Podunk East's ass and takes names."
     
  12. cjericho

    cjericho Well-Known Member

    Got a buddy whose name is in a boxscore the last day of The National. Think he still has the paper, showed it to me several years ago.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page