Your fault, OR, what are they paying those darned copy editors for?

We all can do some small things to help the process.

In this day and age, we know there are half a dozen ways to spell Brittanee and Cyndie, and don't even get me started on first names I've encountered like Vroleen and LaKweesha (yeah, cap K, so she says). If the desk had to fact check all these, the paper would never get out. The writer can earn major kudos by telling the desk, yes, there are some odd spellings in here, but they are right.

 

This thread could get ugly quick, but...

A lot of it depends. I work for a small, five-person staff. Usually, one person (on deadline) reads my story before it goes to print. If they miss a typo, it's really hard to blame them. When I worked parttime for a big paper, 4-5 people read my story. Very, very few errors got in.

But to answer the question, it's technically your fault.

 

If you make a mistake, it's not technically your fault -- it is your fault.

 

No, Ace. It's our fault. We're a team. When our section wins an award, or when we misspell Derek, Derrick, Derick, Derrek, we're a team.

Unless I win an award. Then, it's all about me.

 

What he said. My story, my mistake. My page, my mistake.

Only time I've had a beef with a co-worker was when he sarcastically gave me shit for catching five mistakes on his page, but not the sixth. That got me seeing red fairly quickly.

 

I purposely but typos in my stories just to give the copy editors something to do.

 

I think you had a typo in that post. Or was that to give me something to do?

 

And yet I worked at a paper where the desk was expected to check every name before it got into the paper.

This is in a place where the roster in the program, the roster sent to us at the beginning of the season and the list of participants in the sport from the school's paper pushers (why we got sent that one, I don't know) had some names spelled differently each time. Further, the ones from the school's paper pushers were in some folder in one of the prep writers' desks, and I hate rifling through those things to find an answer on deadline.

So, writers, you can rock the desk's world by asking a coach, in your postgame chat, how to spell Michael/Mikel/Mychal's name so not only do the parents not call and bitch, but we don't end up printing a correction for something that should be correct at the source.

Rant over.

 

Who the hell do you think keeps misspelling the names on the rosters? You think the coach knows how to spell Micheal's name? Why not ask Myke himself?