Waiving bye-bye

[hankschu]

This was the lede to the A-1 centerpiece story in my local Singleton paper today:

The former BART police officer accused of killing an unarmed man at the Fruitvale train station on New Year's Day waved his extradition right Wednesday and is now in Alameda County awaiting arraignment.

Maybe they should outsource their copyediting to India, where people presumably know the difference between "waved" and "waived."

Funny thing is, it's still up that way on their web site as I write this.

 

[imjustagirl]

Well, maybe his right arm has been extradited, so therefore, he could be waving his extradition right.

Maybe?

 

[playthrough]

The "i" was on furlough.

 

[hankschu]

The "i" was on furlough.

Excellent

 

[txsportsscribe]

the whole SportsJournalists.com site is going to crash if we have a thread on every error that appears in a paper across the country.

 

[SF_Express]

the whole SportsJournalists.com site is going to crash if we have a thread on every error that appears in a paper across the country.

What he said. No offense, Hank ... just a typo. Happens in our biz.

 

[ServeItUp]

Coda kitty waves his right to extradition.

Sorry, Shot, had to do it.

 

[DanOregon]

Sure it's a typo, but it's also bad editing. Figure at least a dozen people at the paper read that story before the button was pushed.

 

[hankschu]

the whole SportsJournalists.com site is going to crash if we have a thread on every error that appears in a paper across the country.

What he said. No offense, Hank ... just a typo. Happens in our biz.

Nope. Sorry. I call bull**** on that.

This is the lede on THE top story in our area right now. This was not a deadline story. The court hearing was before lunchtime. This was the centerpiece A-1 story in the paper this morning. Don't know about your shop, but at mine, where we've had three rounds of buyouts in the last three years, even a story that goes inside is read by at least three people, two rimmers plus the slot. On news-side, an ACE would examine it as well. A-1 stories are seen by even more eyes.

Yes, everybody makes mistakes, but to see a mistake of that magnitude in that story to me points to the pitfalls of scaling back on editors, which Mr. Singleton is eager to do and has done at this particular paper.

 

[DanOregon]

Anybody think the officer in question would be up on murder charges without the cell phone video? Seems more like manslaughter to me, but I really wonder how much the video changed the way this case was handled.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Hank: Did you tell them about the typo?

 

[hankschu]

Hank: Did you tell them about the typo?

Nope. I'm waiting to see how long they'll let it go on their web site. So far, about 17 hours and counting, including one update to the story. Here's the link, if you want to play along:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/oakland-bart-shooting/ci_11457016/

 

[DanOregon]

What happens when a typo makes it through and there aren't any readers to point it out?

 

[apeman33]

What happens when a typo makes it through and there aren't any readers to point it out?

Then it must have happened in my paper (rim shot).

I end up being the copy editor for most of the rest of the paper because the managing editor and I are the only ones on salary. No one else can stay as late as we do because they'll end up too close to or over 40 hours by the end of Thursday night. And after reading about five pages of other people's stuff, my eyes are ready to explode and I'm sure things slip through because I can no longer see them. I end up hoping others saw the typos before the stories went on the page and I concentrate on punctuation and cutlines and headlines.

 

[SixToe]

Nothing like letting mistakes get in the copy to reinforce your standards for journalism.

Words matter. Mistakes matter. Every ****ing one of them matters.

 

[SF_Express]

Nothing like letting mistakes get in the copy to reinforce your standards for journalism.

Words matter. Mistakes matter. Every ****ing one of them matters.

Of course they do. They also happen.

And I just think this is slightly different because the word in question remains a real, albeit wrong, word.

Take this from somebody who once misspelled "memento" on 1A of a major (well it was) metropolitan newspaper and it sailed through three editions, including copious proofing, before getting caught.

And Hank, no argument with one thing about this: As staffs are reduced, you're certainly right. This kind of thing will happen a lot more frequently.

 

[txsportsscribe]

i doubt anyone here believes it's ok for errors to get through to either the web site or the print product but it's the nature of the beast and a thread on a simple typo in a single paper is a bit overkill.

 

[crusoes]

The "i" was on furlough.

It'll be back next week.