Does one typo kill a clip?

Actually, if you care about integrity, I think it does matter. If you're absolutely sure it was a desk error, you should fix it and not even give it a second thought. If it was (or may have been) your error, then you're being a little more sneaky to fix it. Personally, I wouldn't. But this is really about being able to look yourself in the mirror. No way the reader would be able to determine whose error it was.

 

Having read clips and then seen the raw copy produced by some writers, I can tell you they had awful good folks massaging that copy.
I don't hold a typo in a clip against a writer. Given how quickly sometimes copy must get churned, I understand things like that will happen — and even get by a good copy desk.

 

It shouldn't matter that much, but it does, because I read that clip, and if the error is glaring, I say, "Out of the whole body of work, he/she couldn't come up with clips that didn't have typos in them?"

Unless that clip won a Pulitzer, it's not worth the risk. You never know what the reaction will be.

 

The worst is when your story is right, but someone fucked up on the desk and there's a typo in the headline.

Happened to me several years ago. I had some of the best breaking news I ever did, but there was a fuck-up in the headline in each of the two days when the stories ran. Frustrating.

 

It won't help, but if that's your best work, use it without hesitation. If you have comparable clips with no typos, use those instead. I think most reasonable hiring editors know that some great writers make mistakes, and that a significant percentage (typos or others) are written in by copy editors anyway. Every clip will have some imperfection. Good luck with your job search!

 

I think I might have sent a clip or two to BTExpress. "Dangit, there was a tiny slip of paper covering up a word or two when I copied the story."

 

Looking yourself in the mirror?

To hell with that. He's trying to get a job. Use the online clip and fix it.

 

What you're sending is the best of yourself to show yourself off. Hiring managers are often splitting hairs when deciding which person to hire, and the decisions are often pretty subjective.

If it gets noticed, there's a chance you're dead in the water, so don't send it (or find a way to send a corrected one, especially if it's the desk's fault ).

That said, I wrote a story that I thought was pretty good once, submitted it into a statewide competition. I won an award for it, so I pulled it for my resume clip file -- and realized I had used the same quote twice. That's not a desk error, but obviously, the judge must have never noticed it.

 

All of this assumes the people doing the hiring are actually reading these clips, which I am fairly certain is not always the case

 

From what I know, that's mostly true, but not completely. There are so many applicants for most openings it's pretty much impossible for anyone to read all of them. From talking to those on the hiring end (I'm not) most openings draw between 100 and 300 applications. Most of the time the hiring editors have already made their decisions and are posting the openings because they're required to for whatever reasons, so don't expect a thorough reading of your clips in those cases. When postings are for jobs that are actually in play, hiring editors immediately eliminate at least 90 percent, or however many they need to narrow it down to a manageable number. At some point, whether they're down to the final three to 20 (probably depends on the hiring editor), clips will get read to some extent. How much they'll care about typos/mistakes, again, probably depends on the hiring editor. In my opinion, it's the midsize paper where they're going to want meticulous copy. The smaller papers that pay below fast food wages will take what they can get, and the metro dailies theoretically have enough competent copy editors that afford them the luxury to look for the best athlete. In other words, I think they're be more concerned with the structure and content of your copy. The midsize papers will want good storytellers, but their priority will be turning in clean copy on deadline, because they don't have enough depth on the desk to catch every typo.