mistakes

wrong dateline

NFL road game

absentmindedly datelined it as a home game

it ran

 

I had that a kid shit, instead of hit, back-to-back buckets once.

 

deion sanders had a bulging DICK in his back several years ago in a small north texas cnhi daily.

 

Not mine, thank God, but the February 21, 1997, Sports section of the Gallatin (Tenn.) News Examiner is in a class by itself.

That mistake only cost the owners $800,000 after the courts got through hearing the case.

There's a copy of it on my desk somewhere. Right next to the "Swallows-Cox" wedding announcement that Leno wouldn't run, though someone on his staff wrote back that they wish they could.

 

It doesn't say what was said, but here's the AP report on the closing of the case.

 

Re: Galatin, for those like myself who had no clue...

http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jun/1/127184.html

 

Aren't these Internets great?

I'll post the actual article later if I get time.

 

The Cliff's Note version, sans details (I do seem to recall the phrase "goat fucker" being included):

A statement inserted in the dummy copy of a small-town newspaper in Tennessee resulted in major liability for that paper. In 1997, the Gallatin News Examiner, a tri-weekly paper, ran an article about a local high school soccer player named Garrett "Bubba" Dixon, Jr. In an early draft of the article the reporter, Nick DeLeonibus, inserted quotes attributed to the high school soccer coach charging Dixon, in extremely explicit language that would otherwise have been unfit for publication, of bestiality and unsanitary habits. This was an ongoing joke between reporter DeLeonibus and his editor in which such quotes would be inserted into the article by the reporter to see if the editor caught on. The joke bombed. The editor missed the quotes in this edition, the quotes remained in the final product, and both the soccer player and coach sued. Despite the newspaper's arguments that the statements could not be understood as statements of fact, a Tennessee jury awarded the player, Dixon, $550,000 in compensatory and $300,000 in punitive damages against the News Examiner. The coach received $150,000 in compensatory damages from the paper.

 

I hate it when that happens.

 

A couple classics from the St. Augustine Record.
In a cut line, Tiger Woods was 10 shits back instead of 10 shots.
In a 100-year anniversary story about the paper, they dropped the l in a headline that was supposed to read, 100 years of public service.

 

I remember when that happened our ASE printed out the story as an example to never, never write joke copy in a story assuming someone is going to catch it.

Can you imagine the punch in the stomach the reporter must have felt the next morning? Man.

 

I read the original print version of the Gallatin story, lots of talk about the kid being a goat f--er and having [genital] breath. Incredibly poor judgment.