rookie mistakes

[In Cold Blood]

I'm a youngster fresh out of college.

The other night, I spelled someone's name wrong in a headline (despite getting it right in the story) and have been beating myself up for it. Today, one of the guys at work reminded me that everybody makes mistakes...

It was an honest mistake and I'm sure I have bigger brain farts in my future, but it made me curious...

What's your biggest rookie (or veteran) mistake? What's the biggest f up you've ever seen from a staff member at your place, or in papers in general?

 

[Smallpotatoes]

Ones that I've seen:
On a jumphead that was supposed to read "No. 1 ranking suits (name of team)." an h went in place of u in suits.
I've heard of one paper writing about "the election count" and leaving the o out of count.

I once got a coach's name wrong in a pullquote attribution, as well as many, many other mistakes.

 

[Cadet]

Stuff like that comes and goes, but it's missing the basics of the process that poses a problem. I never forget people, even youngsters, who show up without pen and notebook.

 

[John]

I'm a youngster fresh out of college.

The other night, I spelled someone's name wrong in a headline (despite getting it right in the story) and have been beating myself up for it. Today, one of the guys at work reminded me that everybody makes mistakes...

It was an honest mistake and I'm sure I have bigger brain farts in my future, but it made me curious...

What's your biggest rookie (or veteran) mistake? What's the biggest f up you've ever seen from a staff member at your place, or in papers in general?

Don't beat yourself up too much because mistakes do happen -- to all of us. As others will surely note, all you can do is learn from them.

That said, how many other people proofed the page and missed it? They should be feeling bad, too. I know I do when I miss something while proofing, even if it's caught be someone else before the page is sent.

 

[OrangeGrad]

Once wrote a Sunday cover headline saying Tommy Rackethead won his semifinal Wimbledon match. Too bad the match was suspended before it was finished. Tommy lost the match two days later. Another time spelled the executive editor's name wrong under a mugshot. Luckily I caught that one and had to stop the presses.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Not killing a guy I worked for this one time.

I'd be out by now and he'd still be dead.

I use purple in this instance because I'm joking. Mostly.

 

[In Cold Blood]

John,
We're a super small shop, with one incredibly careful copy editor, but on the two nights a week she's off, pages get proofed by whoever is in the office that night.. so its my job to get things right on the first time through, because it's only going to be me and whoever is doing front page looking over stuff.

 

[John]

John,
We're a super small shop, with one incredibly careful copy editor, but on the two nights a week she's off, pages get proofed by whoever is in the office that night.. so its my job to get things right on the first time through, because it's only going to be me and whoever is doing front page looking over stuff.

I've been there. A lot of us here have. It's good that the mistake bothers you. Means you care. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[da man]

I once wrote an advance for a game involving West Virginia, except I called it Virginia Tech in every reference for the entire story.

 

[jfs1000]

Wrong headline? That's it. Get ready for mroe my friend.

I once had the folio saying June when it was May. I have alos ruined production by forgetting to send a color phot's back out.

Mistakes happen. It sucks, but as long as you have controls in place, you'll be fine. Misspelling a healdine isn't a rookie mistkae. It's just carelessness and rushing. Just relax and take your time (going to take my own advice too).

 

[In Cold Blood]

jfs,
You're absolutely right... it was me rushing and not being as attentative as I could be.
I think I called it a rookie mistake, because, since I'm new, I haven't quite adapted to the full-time workload yet, so I always feel rushed.
I'm trying to remember to take a breath every now and then and look over things one more time.

 

[Your Huckleberry]

I knew a sports editor who wrote a full page feature on a coach who won his school-record 300-sumthing football game only to find out a week later that there had been a mistake in adding the coach's totals for his career.

As it was, the coach needed about six more wins to break the record. The paper ran a retraction explaining its mistake and embarrassing the poor ******* to death. I felt horrible for him.

That same sports editor is now an agate clerk. True story.

 

[amraeder]

I've spelled my fair share of names wrong, most get caught, a few didn't. Only mistake I received an angry comment about was when I couldn't remember what day it was.
For some reason I thought Saturday was Friday. So I tried to refer to a game that happened the previous day, and talked about their "Thursday loss." I get a call from someone informing me, correctly, that they in fact won on Thursday, but what she happened to say in that message, without leaving her name, couldn't be printed in any paper in the country.

 

[Tom Petty]

we all make mistakes. it's the frequency that's most important.

i'm going to guess you don't make too many if one of your boys told you not to worry about it. if that's true, well, don't worry about it. we only strive to be perfect. we certainly are not.

 

[dragonfly]

I spelled a lot of names wrong my first 4-5 months. It made me want to throw up everytime, but it took me a while to learn to slow down and really make every single person spell their name for me, even the easy ones.

I'm glad I had that problem when I started though, because it underscored the importance of getting it right every single time.

Anyway, it's good you feel bad about it. That means you'll figure out how to get over it someday. You'll never be perfect. But shoot for 99 out of 100.

 

[fishwrapper]

In 18 years, I've never made a mistake.
I don't know what you guys speak of.


Not that anyone noticed , but one time I got the name of the event wrong in the Masthead of a Special Section for a NASCAR race in town. Yep, the ****ing Masthead.

 

[Tom Petty]

In 18 years, I've never made a mistake.
I don't know what you guys speak of.


Not that anyone noticed , but one time I got the name of the event wrong in the Masthead of a Special Section for a NASCAR race in town. Yep, the ****ing Masthead.

i made that one dewey defeats truman thingie, once. i guess that's why i'm so accepting.

 

[dawgpounddiehard]

Rook,

These things are going to happen with misspelling names. Glad to see everyone in your shop was cool about it.

Only advice, if you're laying out papers and you need filler for the time being always make sure it says something like Heady HEEERE or Cutline NEEEDED or at best XXXX.

If you have a cutline and put "some ****er" for a kid's name you don't have yet and it runs, you won't have a job the next day. I'm not saying this from personal experience, just passing on a story I heard that scared the **** outta me.

 

[shotglass]

When you make a mistake in computer re-plating, and the city team winning the district girls' basketball championship does not run in final edition, THEN you need to take a real deep breath.

 

[Willie-Butch]

"The other night, I spelled someone's name wrong in a headline (despite getting it right in the story) and have been beating myself up for it."

The words in () prove you're fresh out of college. Don't try to make yourself feel better because you got it right in the story. It doesn't make the mistake in the headline disappear.

But I agree with whoever said it's a good sign that you feel bad. Mistakes happen. Feel bad, move on and get it right next time.