Mark Whicker, what were you thinking?

[WriteThinking]

That apology is awful. Not once in that apology does he assign any blame to his writer. Instead, it focuses entirely on the desk for not killing the piece THAT HIS COLUMNIST TURNED IN.

Obviously the desk is equally responsible for this running, but this never would have happened if Whicker didn't turn this piece of shirt in. Instead, he's called a quality writer in the apology and the desk suffers.

Pretty clear this is a department where the columnist outranks the SE and can't handle the truth. Weak.

VJ,

The editor is taking responsibility for his part in this, as he should, and speaking from his chair and his point of view, as he should.

And the reason he is taking more responsibility is because that is his job. Whicker's part in this notwithstanding, he is the writer, not the editor. And being a back-stop for the writers is practically the definition of an editor, and, at root, is his or her reason for being there at all.

Did you really expect the editor -- or any editor who hopes to be worth a darn to his staff -- to blast Whicker too much in public?

No doubt that has happened privately, behind closed doors, in some lengthy conference (and maybe a couple of lengthy conferences) sometime in the past couple of days.

I would have given anything to be a fly on one of those walls, because I would have taken something away from it, I'm sure. We all could and should do that in this instance.

But what you're suggesting just wasn't going to happen. And it shouldn't have. I am glad it didn't.

As much angst as we, and the Register's readers, have expressed, it is a very easy thing to do, now, looking back on it with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight.

This is really an example of real life, journalism-style, though, where shirt happens when you're in the midst of it.

Still, that doesn't mean that it always does, or always will.

 

[1HPGrad]

VJ...goes with the territory of being a metro copy desk chief.
Again, don't know what circ you're at, but I can promise you, had I let that column get in at 1HP, I would have had a 5 am phone call blasting my ass. Columnist might have been part of the conference call, but my ass would have been the star attraction. It would not have been pretty.
This is a content decision.
This is the fundamental part of that job.
There really is no wiggle room. This person made the decision not to call (or alert any managers who might have called to check in).
That's a huge issue.
I couldn't trust that person to make the right decision after this.
Person might be a great copy editor, but this job requires so much more than that.

 

[DirtyDeeds]

VJ...goes with the territory of being a metro copy desk chief.
Again, don't know what circ you're at, but I can promise you, had I let that column get in at 1HP, I would have had a 5 am phone call blasting my ass. Columnist might have been part of the conference call, but my ass would have been the star attraction. It would not have been pretty.
This is a content decision.
This is the fundamental part of that job.
There really is no wiggle room. This person made the decision not to call (or alert any managers who might have called to check in).
That's a huge issue.
I couldn't trust that person to make the right decision after this.
Person might be a great copy editor, but this job requires so much more than that.

I agree with most of this, and as I said before I'd be on the phone with the assignment ed or sports ed immediately, but presumably the one who read it before it went online is one of these people. Or maybe not in this day and age. But I'm with Frank, they should have known what he was writing and not left it to the desk. This is what jumped out at me from that apology:

Desk editors discussed their discomfort with the column and steered clear of Ms. Dugard in the headline, writing, "Odd things have happened in past 18 years," for the newspaper. A similar version ran online.
But they didn't kill the story, flag it to a senior editor or call Mark.

So that's not a heck of an apology in my book. Bit the desk should have been more forceful, for sure.

 

[WaylonJennings]

I don't think that explains it away, Waylon.

The problem here is the same problem when the column was hatched: He clearly doesn't understand this was an offensive premise, and not just offensive to some segment of the readership, but to all reasonable segments.

That's clear. But I'm just wondering if one underlying reason is because he's trained himself that, "I'm right, the lunatics are wrong," and it's become such a reflexive defense mechanism that he can't see that it doesn't apply here.

 

[Shark_Juumper]

Could Whicker have field the column late in the shift? Sometimes that through the food chain objection/get it spiked process takes a while and get severely short on a light-shift holiday.

Has anyone worked with Whicker as a copy editor since he became a columnist or in the last few years. Just because someone is pleasant to work with as they work their way up or are nice to people in the press box doesn't mean they are currently all sweetness and light to the copy desk now that they are at the top.

That said, I agree with Magic In the Night, that often the best writers are the most kind to and involved with the desk.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

My thoughts:

1) No, nobody should be fired. An unfortunately confluence of an ill-conceived column idea and holiday staffing. And the writer involved is one of the best.

2) I think the most important thing to be taken out of this has been mentioned: That when you have a longstanding, big-time, excellent columnist, you can't simply turn off your gatekeeper switch on everything he or she files. On a much different level, the same thing happened to "Joe Bob Briggs" in Dallas a long, long time ago. He wrote a lot of outrageous things that were allowed into the paper, and then one day, he crossed the "line" -- wherever the heck that is -- and all heck broke loose. And the poor copy editor was probably saying, "Geez, we let everything else go. How was this different?"

I'll bet those little voices were speaking loudly when this went through the desk the other night. But the people involved replied, "Hey, it's Whicker. How can it be wrong?"

And I'll bet today that even Mark wishes somebody had listened to that little voice. But it's a good lesson/reminder for all of us, particularly as places on the web and down into "main stream" newspapers push the line further than it ever has been.

Who needs editors, though? Right?

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I seriously doubt there is a big paper in this country where a copy editor has the authority to spike a lead columnist's column.

 

[VJ]

Again, I'm not trying to resolve the desk of any responsibility, I just think it's sad that the SE felt the need to throw his entire desk under the bus when he should have said it's my fault for creating an environment where he probably has a no-edit policy and the desk lives in fear of touching the lead columnist's copy. That has to be the case, otherwise any sane person would have spiked it.

 

[Bristol Whipped]

I seriously doubt there is a big paper in this country where a copy editor has the authority to spike a lead columnist's column.

No, but the copy editor has to see this story and if they have to, print it out and hand it to their boss and say, 'Look at this now,' then explain their concerns. If you've handed it up the chain and explained why it shouldn't run, then it's not on your shoulders any more and you can sleep well at night. If you don't do even that much, then you've failed to do your job.

 

[Drip]

A former editor of mine told me "There are about 10 columnists in this country who can survive that column and Whicker isn't one of them."

Nominations? Anyone?

I'd sure like to know who is on that editor's list. Whicker will survive because people will forget this crap in a couple of weeks.
As for the apology by the editor, only three words would've done it for me: "We forked up."

 

[friend of the friendless]

Sirs, Madames,

What Mr Whipped said. And I can't imagine that this wasn't filed in plenty of time for the checks and balances to check and balance.

o-<

 

[Magic In The Night]

Sirs, Madames,

What Mr Whipped said. And I can't imagine that this wasn't filed in plenty of time for the checks and balances to check and balance.

o-<

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Our famous lead columnist routinely files 10 minutes or so before (and sometimes even after) drop-dead deadline. Even when it's a should-have-been-done-way-in-advance column like this one was.