Bad headline

I have a copy of that picture in my desk at work.
Guy did lose his job.

 

Does anyone remember the circumstances in Tennessee with the cutline something like ... (THE GIRL'S NAME) scored 100 points, grabbed 75 rebounds and a sports editor's ass.

I think I was told they got the picture before the gamer or something like that. The word was they fired all four of the guys that were working on the desk that night.

 

While I was in a ... ahe ... far worse place than I am now, our paper's SE was on desk that night and it was Game 7 of the Indians-Marlins World Series. Our paper had a vested interest in the Indians and as the game wore later, deadline approached and nerves frayed a little. Well, said SE, after slapping the gamer into place on the page, sent the page on and went home.

Only he got a call about 10 minutes later that his headline didn't make sense. One of the pressmen who hardly spoke any English came out and told the late check guy "No comprende" and gave him the sheet. The headline read "XXADFASREOYSD" or something like that.

Kinda important not to leave that out. He came back and fixed it. Still kept his job because it didn't run, but funny nonetheless.

I also ran across a guy who was not so sports saavy and was put in charge of doing the desk one night at his paper in East Bumblefrig, Oklahoma. It was the night Magic Johnson announced he had AIDS. This guy, not knowing enough about sports, put the headline down as "Magic Jordan has AIDS"

I still laugh at that one.

 

Hey, I know where East Bumblefrig, Oklahoma is. They and West Bumblefrig are huge rivals.

I've left xx's in cutouts once or twice before, noticed them the next day and slapped my forehead a few times, but have never had any massive hed busts or anything.

But once in our office, somebody put a joke hed on a story file and when our Web site grabbed the story, it went out. Dude was lucky he didn't get fired.

 

Magic Johnson, 15 years after his announcement, shows no signs of AIDS.

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Most papers I've worked at have an automatic-firing rule for intentionally sending out a page proof with a profanity on it. Because you know goddamn well, somehow or other that file is gonna get sent to camera and printed up.

 

While I was not affliated with this paper at the time, I remember the Penguins losing to the Panthers in a Game 7 (remember when they used to throw the rats?) and Tom Barrasso was in goal. The page 1 art above the fold showed the game winning goal, but it also had a little quote superimposed dead center of the picture.

""It sucks," Smolinski said" was right over Barasso's mask.

This was back in the cut-and-paste days and I guess the cut and paste guy was a little bit of a Pens fan.

What really pissed the Pens fans off was that they had Lemieux, Jagr and Francis at the top of their games and the powerful RedWings had been knocked off by Colorado. I'm sure every Pittsburgh fan felt that Colorado was no match for the Pens at that time.

Don't know if anyone lost their job on that one. I'm pretty sure no one on the sports desk did.

 

After years with a spotless track record, I just picked up a copy of my sports section today to be greeted by "cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here ..." underneath a photo on 5B. Awesome. And good timing, too.