What was your biggest goof, typo, etc.?

Well done

 

Used to write "Asjkdfhjkshfklsdfg" or something like that to file headline space in college. A1 main story was about a Marquette University student in the Marines who died overseas. Someone forgot to write a headline and it went through entire proofing process. Six people looked at the proof, so the EIC went ballistic the next morning at 9 a.m.

 

It's hard to top that, being an A1 main hed that whiffed six batters. Was everyone stoned?

 

My biggest boner (you like that?) came this summer during the Olympics.

Morgan Uceny -- who was a medal contender in the 1,500 before tripping during the final -- is from our coverage area. So we were running front-page stuff on her after every race she had.

So, after editing our Uceny story late on a Saturday night, I did spellcheck and noticed I'd accidentally replaced Uceny in the headline with Acne. Or, at least that's what I thought.

I looked at the proof and saw Uceny in the headline and on the mugshot and didn't give it a second thought.

Turns out I had hit "Replace All" instead of just "Replace." So she was referred to as Acne throughout the entire story.

Thankfully, I was off for a few days and didn't see my boss until later in the week. By that time, he'd pretty much cooled off.

 

Agreed. May have been stoned or just not have given a crap.

 

Feel your pain. Something I could have easily done, myself.

 

Mine was from my college paper. Covered a baseball story, and mentioned a player who reached after getting "hit by a bitch."

Fortunately, that caught by our editor-in-chief during proofing.

 

The final player on the all-area girls basketball team was actually a boy. He had an ambiguous last name and I guess the editor typing it misheard. We never heard anything about it, but before next basketball season I was trying to remember the final player (we'd had a short and pointless debate about which of two girls should go there). I got my answer.

 

I'm watching ESPN Classic's airing of the 1992 NLSC Game 7 and was reminded of an earlier post, by Riptide I believe. It has been confirmed - Otis Nixon looks nothing like Richard. ;D

Reminds me of a true story. Some dip was trying to convince me he was a former Secret Service agent and sometimes acted as President Clinton's decoy.
Dumbass was around 6-6, 300. And black.

 

The Boulder paper sometime in the 1990s sent a writer to Australia to cover a Broncos preseason game. The writer sent in a story and the sports editor hit search and replace on spell check and every proper noun in the story was changed. No one noticed and it made every edition. Biggest trainwreck I've ever seen. They passed out copies of it at APSE that year.

 

Changed to what? I'm assuming that would make the story funny.