Chicago Sun Times FAIL

I'm not talking from logic. I'm talking from experience.

 

What should be "blatantly obvious" is that the photo the editor in question just searched for and selected, while it might have been the most recent moved by AP, didn't look like the other photos of Matt Garza that presumably would have come up in the search results.

Have a hard time believing whoever's designing the back page at the S-T only looked at one photo before making the call on what to use.

 

What kind of experience? Passing the buck when the mistake is that of your own? Trying not to be a dick here, but if I made that mistake, and my bosses came to me saying what happened, "It was the APs fault" wouldn't heal the wounds. Or if a reader called and said, what is happening over there, "It was the APs fault" wouldn't be a very good excuse.

 

I'm really glad I don't work for some jackass boss who expects me to say it's my fault when an AP photo misidentifies someone.

I'm perfectly glad to admit to the many, many mistakes that are my fault. But I've gone to battle with any boss who tries to make me accept blame for something that wasn't. The looks on their faces are worth the write-ups.

 

Experience of designers blaming similar mistakes to bad info from AP and bosses happily chalking it up to AP's bad.

 

-- If the same thing happened at our place, the correction would read something like: "Because of incorrect information from The Associated Press ....."

-- Long time ago I was in a training session with my SE for the old leaf desk photo system. I didn't know who the guy was training us. As he showed us how to filter using the AP slug coding (BBA, BBN, FBN, BKC, HKN, etc.), I asked who puts the slug coding and the caption on the photos? The guy said the photographer does it. I said, "From my experience, I don't trust photographers to do anything except take the picture." Turns out the guy was the head photog at AP L.A. My SE wasn't thrilled with my choice of words. But I bet then and even moreso today, the majority of our corrections are from captions in which we got incorrect info from the photog. Not the case with this specific example, but in most cases there's no way to check the info, especially on prep shots.

 

Come on, man. This isn't some random guy in an AP photo. This is the guy your hometown team just trade a number of prospects for. And it's on YOUR back page. You might want to be 100 percent sure that's him. It's embarrassing all the way around, and if it were me, yes, I'd be pissed at the AP, but I'd be a little more pissed at myself.

 

I remember the time where we caught an AP cutline describing the ice hockey exploits of a player for the Chicago Blacks. Luckily that mistake was pretty easy to catch.

Also, last week they sent out the story and agate about the winner of the Walter Payton Award for best offensive player in the FCS. In their words, it was quarterback Jeremy Moses of Southwest Texas State. Not only does that school no longer exist -- it is now Texas State -- Moses plays for Stephen F. Austin.

So, I think the lesson is that those woefully understaffed bastards are going to screw everyone over at some point. You just have to be extra-vigilant and hope it's not you.

 

Is that team in the same league with the Blues, or with the Browns?