Hossein in the membrane

I've noticed lately a recurring problem with Associated Press photos of the protests in Iran, in that the name of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has been repeatedly misspelled "Hossien" in the cutlines on DC 5.  It's not the fault of any of our copy editors here, but it's something we need to be vigilant for when reading stories about the situation in Iran.  It's "Hossein" just like Saddam Hussein, just with an O, not a U.

Also, apparently I've read enough Iran stories now to recognize Mousavi's full name on sight.

TV or DT?

When the local television channels switched to digital, their call letters changed a bit, too. WAOW-TV is now WAOW-DT, WSAW-TV is now WSAW-DT, and so on. For accuracy's sake, we should go the DT route, but some stories I've read (and some television station Web sites) are sticking with the TV designation. Any suggestions of how we should go?

Giving the business

I've just received a breaking news bulletin that we have canceled our Motley Fool coverage, making the Central Wisconsin Inc. page no longer able to host our Foolish content.

To help fill the space, we can add more wire articles (preferably with art, as it's a big space to fill).  It's also okay to grab an article from Friday (if the page is done on Saturday) as long as we're sure it's still timely and it didn't already run.

(This post is a bit of a return to form for me, as I will be trying in the future to get more content up on a regular basis.)

Know what you're writing about

A column written for Wisconsin Rapids' GO section had a historical goof. The column was about the Glenn Miller Orchestra coming to Rapids. The writer said Glenn Miller joined the Army in 1938. No so. He started his successful civilian band in 1938, which he disbanded when he joined the Army in the fall of 1942. The only reason I know this is because I'm a big Glenn Miller fan. But what if the copy editor knew little about Glenn Miller? How would he or she know whether anything the writer wrote was correct or not? (OK, this is more for the reporters, but I hope they look at this from time to time.)

And for the record, the Army was known as the Army Air Force during World War II.

City names

Two Wisconsin cities tend to be misspelled when it comes to press releases and the like: La Crosse and Fond du Lac. Many spell La Crosse as one word, while the D on Fond is left out.

Urban legend?

Once, after typing in an obituary into the system, the copy editor added the following note at the bottom for the other editors to see: I know this reads like (blank), but that's how the (blank) of a funeral director wants it to read. And, yes, the blanks do replace what you think they do.

This obituary made it into print, complete with the copy editor's note.

Muphry's Law (sic)

Something I came across this morning that I had to share: Muphry's Law gives a name to conventional copy desk wisdom.