Do any of you care when your order is forked up at McDonald's? I don't. It just pisses me off. Couldn't care less whether someone didn't show up for their shift, whether it was someone new working, etc.
Like many, I can be high-minded about what we do. I think it's very important.
But the bottom line is that we put out a product for public consumption. We are McDonald's to our readers. They don't care about our problems. They never will.
I tell my people that all the time. No one wants to hear a bunch of excuses when something of that magnitude is screwed up -- and I say that as someone who accidentally included the same word in a story a few years ago. I was on an unexpected early deadline, my technology failed on-site and our desk didn't read it as they normally would as a result.
In-house, it was understood that it was a perfect storm of bullshirt, though ultimately, the responsibility for typing the word was mine.
But as far as the public is concerned, you just apologize and take your lumps.
The public understands that more than a bunch of excuses they don't care about ... whether the excuses carry weight behind closed doors or not.
