Fourth? Third? Does it matter?

This is from my hometown paper, which gave me my start in journalism.

The paper's fall in the last three years has been a train wreck. Hearking the news side has ONE full time copy desker now.

 

Was either one correct?

 

If you ain't first ...

 

Meh, those who care were either there, part of the immediate family, or can look it up online.

 

She finished fourth overall, but got three team points.

 

Not 6?

 

Heark the copy editors sing!

 

Cross country is different than track.

Winner, if she is on a full team, gets 1 point, not 10.

Add up the team points (which might be the same as overall finish depending on individuals) of a team's best five finishers (team qualifiers have seven runners) to get your team scores.

 

And those of you who have never made an error like this can giggle from afar. Many of us, however, are old enough to remember when errors like that would sneak through on fully staffed -- what some would now called overstaffed -- copy desks.

Now, if hed busts and promo busts are happening, say, more than once a year, or once every 18 months, then it's well and truly a sign of the decline and fall of newspaperdom. But a miscue like that, to be at all notable, has to be part of a larger trend. It's bad, but it also falls into the "shit happens" category for all of us who have done this job for more than a couple of years.

 

The lack of editing has made me become more generic. I try not to put too many details in headlines anymore because of this situation. I'd now rather be corny or cliche or even vague than make a mistake like this.

 

If she were north of the Ohio River, she might be a Fifth Third.

 

And if she turns to a life of petty larceny, the headline could be: Been Caught Stealing