Copy Desk Friday the 13th, Part 1: Mugshots

The other side of that is the columnist who still runs the mug from 15 years ago -- and in some cases, 50 pounds ago, too.

 

I learned quickly to get the coach on my side when shooting the kids and having them write their name down (say for track or other such sports where they didn't have a number or if the jerseys were out on order) legibly. I would tell the coach if we messed up the name/faces because the kids were goofing off, I would direct any complaints to his AD. Most coaches threatened laps or pushups for goof offs.

 

Been there except I caught it. But, only reason I caught it was because I was reading 1A, not for proof but because I was waiting for my game to end. The copy desk should have. It's why I've long been an advocate of having full identification embedded into the photo (which should be Journalism 101 but somehow escaped ...almost everyone)

 

The one that I recall was at an upper middle class high school. We shot mugs of the football team. The QB was pretty damn good and eventually got a lower-tier Div. I scholarship (Hawaii, I think). He was black and the helmet totally messed up his afro. Anyway, at the office we looked at the mug and we quietly joked that he looked like a gorilla. We, of course, used the same mugs repeatedly.
About midseason, phone rang. It was his mom. She said, "Could you PLEASE take another photo of my son ... the one you have makes him look like a gorilla."

 

This isn't exactly the same but we once had a reporter misread a police report and put the wrong kid in the story. I ended up using the wrong kid's mug shot. For some reason, they asked me why I used the wrong mug shot before they asked the reporter why he used the wrong name.

 

A few years after I "parted ways" with my former shop, they ran a story quoting a guy with a similar but differently-spelled last name to mine. Sure enough, they pulled my mug out of the archive because by that point they had run off pretty much everyone on the copy desk who might have recognized me. That was good for a few laughs.

 

Oh, I know that trick.
Now.
That incident was pretty early in my career, though, before I'd figured it out or had someone give me that tip. Nowadays when I get mugs at practice or in the offseason and there's no jerseys around, all of the kids wonder why I'm frantically ripping pages out of my notebook and writing numbers on them.

 

Not in a story, but an ad: City Council candidate had same name as a reporter at one shop. Former takes out campaign ad, designer searches on name, and photo of latter goes on ad. Copy desk chief happens to be walking through backshop when pasteup person asks him, "Hey, didn't he used to work here?" He leaves backshop with copy of ad in hand, laughing hysterically. He shows it to me, and soon I'm in laughter. And, yes, they did get the right photo on the ad.

 

Kid could easily write a teammate's name on the piece of paper. Wouldn't surprise me, anyways...

 

It was in a redneck county, too. So it didn't go over well at first glance. Thing was, Mr. Buck was a minor city official, so his mug ran at least a few times. I think we finally went with his first and last name in the mug line for his photo only.

 

Even worse, the big-city columnists who still run their mug shots from 20 years ago.
They were 30 pounds lighter then, or maybe 70, and their hair wasn't gray then ... or gone.

 

My favorite tale is of the business reporter at my former paper who wrote a workplace column.

Her editor came up to us after we'd mistakenly run her old column mug (she'd had a new one shot barely a week ago) to complain. I asked what was so bad about the old one. The editor said, "She says it makes her look fat."

Once the editor was out of earshot, the co-worker who designed the page (and had placed the old mug) said, "Well, she IS fat."