One of the worst days of my life

Hang in there Aaron. Happens to everybody at some point. Like someone said earlier, it'll be hilarious in a few years.

At one of my former papers, we had a picture of a girl holding a possum. But there was a typo and it said the girl was holding her pussum. That went over like a fart in church.

Also, I wrote a girls basketball gamer that included how a player left because of cramps. I meant leg cramps. But obviously, others didn't see it that way.

 

On the desk we had once had a 20-inch story about the local deaf school.
Called them the school for the death.
About 30 times.
The story was read by a editor, didn't catch it.
Life certainly goes on, you will be fine.
Also once ran a story with a giant picture of a guy going in for a layup.
Kid was wearing baggy shorts.... and no underwear.
Yep, everything given to him on this earth was seen, in all it's four-column glory.
Every picture after that was checked very closely for wangs.
Nobody was fired.

 

Gre? Reg?

But seriously folks, when I worked in PR at a local junior college, we were the featured school in an NJCAA publication. The middle two pages were ours. I wrote a story about all the accomplishments of our various athletic teams over the past couple of decades or whatever. All was well in my story, but on the next page, there was a photo of some juco women's basketball coaches getting honored for something or other. One of the women's names was Prissy. Yep, got spelled Pussy. So very, very glad I wasn't in on the post-publication discussions of that one.

 

In a paper last week I got the score of the biggest team in town's game wrong twice, including in the big headline type. Didn't matter that I got it right twice on the same page. I've been beating myself up all week over it.

What made it worse was that I'd written a preview story that had a couple big errors in it, and already had a correction for them on the page with the wrong scores.

I went on to make several other mistakes in the week. Sure, I was sick with the flu while all of this happened, essentially forced to work because we're a two-man sports 'department' and I'm the only one who ever reads my section's copy before it goes to press. Didn't make me feel any less ill about fucking up.

Thanks for this thread. Makes me feel a bit better. And Aaron, don't sweat it.

 

My news editor and I put together a great section. He had a perfect news section, a great balance of news, art and a perfect centerpiece feature. Sports was just as good.
One problem.
I had put a dummy subhead on my top-six story that said subheadsubheadsubhead and the same for my photo caption (it read captiongoesherecaptiongoeshere). I saw it and was pissed that I ruined a section that would have won awards. I steamed for a week, then it was over.
Best part of a mistake like that is it happens and you won't - hopefully - make it again.

 

He empathizes, Aaron:

 

I once had a t wind up in front of the word its...(you figure it out)...and it was in the first sentence of the second paragraph...

 

Honestly, I have no idea how you weren't fired.

As for the original poster, that's just a typo.

 

A couple years ago, a player in my old paper's coverage area tore his labrum, part of the shoulder.

The paper ran that he tore his labium, which is most certainly not part of the shoulder.

No one was fired. No one was forced into hiding. It was embarrassing then, sure. But a couple years later, it's remembered as funny, nothing more.

 

Sir, looking at where you are right now in terms of paper and job, you've accomplished a ton already. I'm guessing that in a few days you'll realize working a nice beat at a mid-sized paper in a great town at a pretty young age will far outweigh the difficult memory of one very unfortunate typo. Living down a mistake isn't fun, but there is always a paper tomorrow and more stories to do. I hope this is in your rearview mirror soon.

 

Would it be heartless to ask Aaron what happened here? How bad could it be?