One of the worst days of my life

I worked with a writer who once got the dateline, the day of the week and the score wrong in their lede.

 

Not to be a dick, but didn't you make this mistake almost a month ago?

 

One I caught when editing our all-county package last night was a line about a coach "leading his team to a birth in the state playoffs." There's a visual we don't need, I know, but I know there are editors that let spellcheck replace thorough copyediting and it slips through now and then.

 

Let's see, I've only got about a million examples, but ...

Spelled "memento" wrong in display type on 1A of a major metro.

On one of my first days as a news editor, Reagan got shot, and I put together the whole section. Hell of a section, too. Only one thing: Nowhere in it was there a picture of ... Ronald Reagan.

Fast forward to this year. Wrote a silly little freelance story about kinds of lightning for a content mill. Spelled it lighting throughout (copy editor caught it).

Since I've been out of print, these don't sting like they used to, because you can fix anything at any time. But I still make them, and so will you.

"This ... is the business we've chosen!"

 

I can think of too many memorable and hilarious ones to list them all.

This one will be among them, but at least it falls into the category of "We all know exactly how this happened."

It's more funny than it is bad.

 

There is one difference between making a mistake now, and making a mistake, say, even 10 years ago. Then, if you left the "o" out of "county," the locals knew, and assuming no one got sued, it was forgotten in relatively short order. Now, you make an error, and you can become the lead item on Deadspin.

 

Here are some notable errors (the first one is my favorite). Aaron, these folks all probably had the same “life-is-over” reactions as you. And life went on.

* Norma Adams-Wade's June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite.
* The Denver Daily News would like to offer a sincere apology for a typo in Wednesday's Town Talk regarding New Jersey's proposal to ban smoking in automobiles. It was not the author's intention to call New Jersey 'Jew Jersey.'
* A correction in this column Thursday about a June 14 Taste section recipe for French coconut pie incorrectly suggested that the recipe called for a pint of vodka.
* In Wednesday's Taste section, a Washington Post recipe on Page F7 included an incorrect cooking time for carbonada (braised beef with onions and red wine). The dish should be cooked for 2 1/2 hours, not 10 to 20 minutes.
* Because of an editing error, a recipe last Wednesday for meatballs with an article about foods to serve during the Super Bowl misstated the amount of chipotle chilies in adobo to be used. It is one or two canned chilies, not one or two cans.
* In a March 17 story about protests planned against the Iraq war, The Associated Press erroneously identified Jeremy Straughn as a political socialist at Purdue University. He is a political sociologist.
* Recent articles in this column may have given the impression that Mr Sven Goran Eriksson was a greedy, useless, incompetent fool. This was a misunderstanding. Mr Eriksson is in fact a footballing genius. We are happy to make this clear.

 

this isn't even close to the 'Boom Goes the Dynamite' guy, so hang in there. We've all messed something up and felt badly about it.

 

Doyle's tale of woe is the best/worst story of the bunch IMO.

 

I just saw the thing about this making Leno.

That's the best publicity the Tuscaloosa News has had in ages.

 

Had a guy, in a volleyball roundup, write that a girl had 7 dicks, instead of digs.

 

Forgot to put the u in titusville once

Had an editor change self-deprecating to self defacation in my John Tesh interview ... I made the frakkin Tonight Show with that puppy. Two months later, it was a blast to say "frak you I quit" in front of the news room (always wanted to do that) and he was gone one month after that ... aaah, good times.