From Mark T.
I have to be honest. I think this is a good place to bring up an error that appeared on the front page of the Stevens Point Journal this week, but A). I don't want to offend anyone, and B). I'm really not sure if there's a procedural way to avoid such a thing.
At any rate, I'm sure a few people already know that the word "pantry" was mistyped during the corrections process in the lede sentence of a story about traffic at local food pantries.
Here's how the sentence was published: "Nationwide, many panties are feeling the pinch of fewer donations coupled with increased need for assistance."
OK, stop laughing. No, really, I mean it. It's not funny, you guys. Cut it out.
Seriously, though, there's no indication on the proofs that anyone checked the corrections after they were made, on a printed proof or by PDF. Even that's no guarantee that someone making such a quick scan would catch a missing letter, but I hope that we are doing that. I also think we ought to take extra time when it comes to front pages.
But what do the people on the firing line have to say about it?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Well, I'll cop to it right away - it was my page, and I was the one who mistyped that word. How I missed that, I have no idea, but it was my own fault. And I failed to have Kerry double-check that before I sent it off to the presses - I check over a new copy versus the old copy's corrections before I send a cover, but obviously, I didn't look closely enough. (And certainly my hubris of checking my own corrections will now come to an end.)
Aside from having someone else check the corrections, I'm not sure what else can be done, logistically. Not much seems to have come of our discussion about checking PDFs, and on many nights of the week, we're down to just two people at the end of the night, so it's difficult to incorporate a third person.
So I do agree. Procedurally, I'm not sure how to avoid it. I know what I can do, personally, to take extra precautions against that mistake in the future, but in the big picture, I do think there comes a point where not every error can be fixed by a new process.
Now that I've said all that, I do have to admit I think it's a little bit funny, or at least I would if it hadn't actually made it into print.
Having the proofer check the corrected proof makes the most sense and needs to be followed religiously on the 1As.
— Kerry
P.S. Don't get your pantries in a bunch over this.
This is a good example of why using spell check doesn't mean a page is clean. Spell check will catch spelling errors, but not wrong word usage. Something to keep in mind.
Post a Comment