Gag gets copy editor fired

[dooley_womack1]

Well, he sure couldn't now.

 

[Dangerous_K]

Unless the fake column was profane or libelous, the firing seems unjustified. But, considering the source ... Dr. Laura, who lives there, seems to have a huge sway with McCaw, the publisher.

Not sure Evel Knievel coulda made that leap. Care to really connect her to this story?

"The fake intro to the Dr. Laura column was part of a mock-page printed out and presented to Lara Milton, the departing copy editor, as a going-away memento.

"It's a newspaper tradition; you make up a newspaper page (usually page one) with fictitious stories making fun of the departing employee.

"So for Lara Milton, someone did a fictitious 'Dr. Lara' column with Milton's photo in place of Dr. Laura's. The tone of it was meant to be a parody of Dr. Laura's writing style.

About seven paragraphs down...

 

[BigJim5190]

Is there something deeper here? Was he in the crosshairs before? Firing here seems to be a little severe - but not if they were looking for an excuse to ****can him.

Not to threadjack, but that link gave me some news I missed - that the late Larry Whiteside will be in the writer's wing of the HOF. Good news.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Actually, yes, yes he did.

Please tell me they called him Spike and that his wife's name was Aggie.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Unless the fake column was profane or libelous, the firing seems unjustified. But, considering the source ... Dr. Laura, who lives there, seems to have a huge sway with McCaw, the publisher.

Not sure Evel Knievel coulda made that leap. Care to really connect her to this story?

"The fake intro to the Dr. Laura column was part of a mock-page printed out and presented to Lara Milton, the departing copy editor, as a going-away memento.

"It's a newspaper tradition; you make up a newspaper page (usually page one) with fictitious stories making fun of the departing employee.

"So for Lara Milton, someone did a fictitious 'Dr. Lara' column with Milton's photo in place of Dr. Laura's. The tone of it was meant to be a parody of Dr. Laura's writing style.

About seven paragraphs down...

Sorry, I'm still not seeing the part where the real Dr. Laura somehow got herself involved by "holding sway" with the publisher and ... what, demanding that he be fired? I'm not getting that from what's writte here, just in Editude taking the swipe.

 

[Dangerous_K]

Ah, OK. Makes sense.

 

[jlee]

Anyone know what the fake column lede was?

"The fake intro to the Dr. Laura column was part of a mock-page printed out and presented to Lara Milton, the departing copy editor, as a going-away memento.

"It's a newspaper tradition; you make up a newspaper page (usually page one) with fictitious stories making fun of the departing employee.

"So for Lara Milton, someone did a fictitious 'Dr. Lara' column with Milton's photo in place of Dr. Laura's. The tone of it was meant to be a parody of Dr. Laura's writing style.

"But what someone apparently didn't realize is that if you then use the same text file for the real Dr. Laura column, you have to delete all the mock material; any text left in the file will end up on the website, even that part is separated from what is 'flowed' onto the real newspaper page. It was a total accident that it ended up on the Web."

Thanks, Hank, but I was inquiring about the actual content of the fake column.

 

[deskslave]

Unless the fake column was profane or libelous, the firing seems unjustified. But, considering the source ... Dr. Laura, who lives there, seems to have a huge sway with McCaw, the publisher.

Not sure Evel Knievel coulda made that leap. Care to really connect her to this story?

"The fake intro to the Dr. Laura column was part of a mock-page printed out and presented to Lara Milton, the departing copy editor, as a going-away memento.

"It's a newspaper tradition; you make up a newspaper page (usually page one) with fictitious stories making fun of the departing employee.

"So for Lara Milton, someone did a fictitious 'Dr. Lara' column with Milton's photo in place of Dr. Laura's. The tone of it was meant to be a parody of Dr. Laura's writing style.

About seven paragraphs down...

Sorry, I'm still not seeing the part where the real Dr. Laura somehow got herself involved by "holding sway" with the publisher and ... what, demanding that he be fired? I'm not getting that from what's writte here, just in Editude taking the swipe.

She probably didn't. From everything I've heard, the publisher at that paper is such a wingnut that she probably flipped out and ordered that the guy be fired just for screwing up anything with Dr. Laura's name attached.

 

[fishwrapper]

Wendy McCaw is a certifiable, malevolent ***** that turned a once-respected newspaper with many outstanding journalists into a sycophantish mouthpiece. **** her.

 

[EStreetJoe]

Wendy McCaw is a certifiable, malevolent ***** that turned a once-respected newspaper with many outstanding journalists into a sycophantish mouthpiece. **** her.

Is she hot?

 

[EStreetJoe]

Depending on what the actual content of the fake column was I can't say if the guy deserved to be fired or not. But I'll err on the side of caution and say that firing is the right move, because once it's out there and it's been seen by people, the damage is done.
The lesson here is don't put anything in the system you don't want to accidentally get on the web or in print. It's happened to too many other people in the past.

 

[Songbird]

That has nothing on the entire 16-page section once created in a tumbleweed town, an ode to "The Animal." Nothing will ever come close to that brilliance. Ever.

 

[Write-brained]

Wendy McCaw is a certifiable, malevolent ***** that turned a once-respected newspaper with many outstanding journalists into a sycophantish mouthpiece. **** her.

Yeah, I'm sort of confused why people on here are acting as though this happened at a normal newspaper ... this is just more of the typical **** that's been going on now for a couple of years, and will continue to occur until she's gone.

 

[Jeremy Goodwin]

Wendy McCaw is a certifiable, malevolent ***** that turned a once-respected newspaper with many outstanding journalists into a sycophantish mouthpiece. **** her.

So how do you really feel about her?

 

[Write-brained]

Wendy McCaw is a certifiable, malevolent ***** that turned a once-respected newspaper with many outstanding journalists into a sycophantish mouthpiece. **** her.

So how do you really feel about her?

That's not even the worst thing said about her that I've read on this site ...

 

[fishwrapper]

Trust me. I showed restraint.
And I challenge anyone to prove any of it wrong (save the "**** her" part).

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I don't know the specifics of this, but I know that when I left my first gig, they did a mock front page for me and it almost moved me to tears... I think it's terrible that someone doing something great for someone else led to a firing even if stupid mistakes were made...

 

[SoCalDude]

Our place has forbidden mock pages for the very reason this guy got fired ... the content winds up on the Internet or in the paper. So many things are linked now, the word files, the pages. You build a page and assign stories to it and most of us have no idea where else these pages and stories are going.

 

[OnTheRiver]

Quick side question for the Mizzou crowd:

Do they still taunt The Maneater down there every year by putting out "The ****eater"?

 

[playthrough]

Our place has forbidden mock pages for the very reason this guy got fired ... the content winds up on the Internet or in the paper. So many things are linked now, the word files, the pages. You build a page and assign stories to it and most of us have no idea where else these pages and stories are going.

That's too bad. When I left my last paper I really didn't expect to get a mock page because I didn't think enough people gave a crap that I was leaving, plus the department didn't have a reputation for doing them. Yet I got one, and I cherish it to this day.

I know the guy who did mine and every other mock at the paper, and he was smart enough to keep the files miles away from real news pages. It just can't be that hard, even in this era.