Question

My original sentence: The screen was blurry as she typed, but then, it’s hard to see anything when typing through tears.

The edited sentence: The screen was blurry as she typed, but then, it’s hard to see anything when typing your through tears.

(Minus the bold. I just wanted to show what frustrated me with it.)

What would your reaction be if an editor did that to the first sentence of your story?

Just curious....

 

I find it exceedingly difficult to type when someone has cried onto my keyboard ...

 

Did they really put "your" before "through"? Because that's ridiculous.

 

Sounds like they meant to add "...when you're typing through tears..." but the stupid fuck didn't know the correct word to use.

Absolutely fucking idiotic for a person in power in journalism to not know the difference between "your" and "you're".

 

My reaction would be, of course, anger. And stuff like that ... or a bad headline, or a jump that doesn't match or is left out completely ... happens from time to time.

After you boil for a bit, go ahead and ask the copy editor about it. If he or she is a real pro, they will admit the mistake, apologize, and hopefully meddle with people's lede a bit less in the future.

I say this as someone who has moved from the world of reporting to the world of the copy desk. And believe me, I've apologized and discussed "what happened" with reporters and photogs quite a bit. We all make mistakes.

 

Could also have meant to edit "typing through your tears." I don't know. Either way, I don't see how it would have improved your copy. I'd be pissed.

Do you know for certain who edited the mistake into your story? Was it your section editor or a copy editor? Is this an ongoing problem? Don't be afraid to bring up the issue. But realize, as Coco said, we all make mistakes.

 

I just made myself laugh out loud .... the "right" wrong sentence read "....your typing through tears."

 

Wow.

 

We have a simple rule...if you touch the lead, call the writer and run it by him.

 

Best places I've worked as a writer had that rule and adhered to it most of the time, except in ridiculous deadline situations.

Worst places I've worked had that rule but often ignored it.

 

my first year at my first paper, i had a desk guy completely fuck up a lead to a story i had spent quite a while on & thought was award-worthy

i was a hot-head kid, a year out of college ... went in the office early afternoon after i saw the paper and made a show out of taking every copy of the paper i could find and tearing it in half, including the ones in the morgue

lucky i didn't get fired

felt good though