Mistakes

[Kato]

We have a universal desk with one copy editor/designer assigned to sports each night. For awhile, the copy desk chief instisted that every story and every brief be turned in to the desk with a suggested headline, that included every little brief and and roundup that the already shorthanded sports staff was scrambling to get over the phones, written up, merged and re-read between 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. It didn't take us long to figure that once a suggested head went on, not much else was read. But the desk had no problem chuckling to Letterman or watching the end of whatever pro game was wrapping up.

As a writer, I'll take full responsiblity for every error that appears in something I produced. However, when I see something that should have been caught somewhere in the editing process, it's a little tough to swallow.

My wife is a former editor who loves to take the red pen to anything in print. When errors appear in our paper, I often blame the reporters first for making the initial mistake (and I've made a doozy or two myself). But she's very quick to come down on the editors. Interesting.

 

[wickedwritah]

At my last stop, where I was a reporter, our Page 1 editor would edit mistakes IN to my stories. On a couple occasions she'd have me check my story on the front after she edited it, and she clearly had misspelled words. (Did I mention she never used spellcheck?) If I believed in black helicopters, I'd also believe that she intentionally put the errors into the stories so we couldn't use them as clips. That's how messed up the shop was.

When I look at a proof, my goal is to make sure it leaves the newsroom without a mistake. When I look at a neg, I want to make sure it heads to the press error free. I regularly have resent negs very close to deadline since I noticed something small -- a byline not adhering to style, spacing, etc. I have no problem with it. One of my desk mates flipped out when I did it one night, and I kindly informed him that we still had time to hit the clock and our job was to put out, to the best of our abilities, a mistake-free newspaper.

 

[Mr. X]

Here's a correction from Wednesday's Los Angeles Times:

Baseball: An article in Sports on June 7 quoted pitcher Luke Hochevar, drafted by the Kansas City Royals, as referring to "Scott" — Scott Boras, his agent — when in fact he used the word "God." Here is the correct quote: "God had a plan in this, and his master plan definitely worked. It was tough through it — you go through it and you fight it — but when it all comes down to it, God has a plan for you, and he definitely worked a miracle in my case."

 

[Gold]

Here's a correction from Wednesday's Los Angeles Times:

Baseball: An article in Sports on June 7 quoted pitcher Luke Hochevar, drafted by the Kansas City Royals, as referring to "Scott" — Scott Boras, his agent — when in fact he used the word "God." Here is the correct quote: "God had a plan in this, and his master plan definitely worked. It was tough through it — you go through it and you fight it — but when it all comes down to it, God has a plan for you, and he definitely worked a miracle in my case."

.. there's a difference? :)