Whoops! My Bad! Real Bad!

When you make a mistake like referring to a source by the wrong name, misspelling someone's name, etc., and you catch it before you get any flak from said person, is it better to preemptively call them and apologize, or just run a correction and hope that's enough (and, possibly, hope that he or she never sees said correction)?

 

Preemptively call and let them know you caught the error and you're running the correction. It keeps the relationship open and lets them know you care.

 

This could have been me. Desk work isn't my strength and when I am fried, I am fried. Worst mistake was I was asked to finihs off a couple of color pages and put in the photos.

Well, I opened up the page and sent two pages straight to the camera room, I never actually put the photo in. About 20 minutes to deadline, some guy comes out with the page and looks at it and there is a gaping hole in the photo.

So, I open the page and put the photo in. This time I save it to color. But, we also have to save the black separation. Oops, didn't do that.

15 minutes after deadline this guy comes out and he has a wild eyed look on him. There is no black in the photo. I just stare and want to hide. I look at the photo and saved it correctly for second edition. for about 12,000 papers, a LOCAL photo had no black in it. Looked kind of funky and artsy though.

The news editor, whom everyone hates, tells me it was probably a computer problem. I tell him no, I F'ed up, but he lets me off the hook and tells the guy we'll deal with it. I gotta admit, he knew I f'd up, but he tried to help me save face. Nice thing to do.

 

I did both. Called to apologize for being a moron, and ran a correction. Coach was a swell guy about it, though he certainly didn't have to be.

 

just wondering why this fuck-up is cut slack by the jury, but ron borges' fuck-up was worthy of termination?
this guy shows up hungover and makes a massive blunder. borges plucks a block of type - supposedly raw - out of a pooled notebook and it turns out to have run in another paper.

 

Bad, but honest, mistake vs. plagiarism.
Yeah, I don't see any diofference.

 

honest mistake? hungover?
so is vehicular homicide while DUI an honest mistake, too?

 

It's a mistake and mistakes happen. Plagarism isn't a mistake and should never happen.

 

You lost a little sympathy for me when you fessed up to being hungover and made the error. But you did absolutely the correct thing by taking the blame. I abhor others who blame everything and everyone for their mistake. Take the hit. Say, "I screwed up and I'll try harder next time."
That's the best advice I can give to young journalists.

 

No. It's a crime either way. If I'm not mistaken you can be charged with vehicular homicide even though you're sober. I know this because my cousin was hit by someone sober and they thought she was going to die at the scene, so they were prepping charges against the sober man that hit her.

And, regarding the hangover, as soon as I let work dictate how I spend my days off (in particular, my bachelor party) I quit.

 

In college, we accidently put an opinion page from a month ago in the paper -- accidently printing the March 17 page instead of the April 17 page we just finished.

It was terrible. There was a piece about St. Patrick's Day and another about our team playing in the NCAA basketball tournament.

I laugh hard about it now, and you will too soon.