Man, it's been a tough week at The Indianapolis Star.Widely read sports blog Deadspin says the Star briefly had the plucky hometown team, Butler University, winning over Duke on its website last night -- apparently a case of someone pushing the wrong button on a ready-to-go page. The subhed reads: "Believe it: Butler is national champion after defeating Duke in title-game classic." Of course, Duke grabbed the title in the final seconds, winning 61 to 59.
The errant page followed a kerfuffle over a photo illustration of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski that appeared in about 30,000 copies of the state edition before it was pulled early Friday morning after editors deemed it inappropriate.
Here's a screengrab of the Star's home page moments ago:
This is an absolute no-no, and someone needs to walk the plank for this one. How to destroy a newspaper: put out erroneous and explosive page one stories that everyone on earth knows are wrong. I could forgive them the devil, but this one is inexcusible. How about a column from the execs explaining what happened, or will they just chicken out and hope it goes away.
ReplyDeleteIt's becoming the norm for Gannett newspapers. Today's Cincinnati Enquirer is loaded with typos and spelling errors. I guess when you fire all of your copy editors these things happen.
ReplyDelete12:45 -- I agree that this is ridiculous, but the people who should "walk the plank," so to speak are Dubow, Martore and company. This is what happens when you strip your newspapers to the bone and then ask the remaining staff to do the jobs of three people.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the specifics, but it's very possible that the person who posted this isn't fluent in Gannett's terrible Web posting tools. These days, everyone is expected to know how to do everything.
Expect to see more and more errors like this at all the papers. You just can't cut your staff back to nothing and buy out your most senior people and expect to maintain quality.
The sad fact, though, is that Gannett won't care about this. It didn't lose any money that they can easily identify on a spreadsheet. Sure, this and the other problem this week could cost them subscribers and ultimately advertising revenue, but there won't be an "obvious" cause and effect, so the beancounters will ignore it.
They've been doing it for years at the smaller papers and now the problems are becoming more prevalent at the bigger ones.
Give him/her a break. Guarantee you they had some poor schlub working the Web desk with no additional help on a HUGE night. Gotta save the almihty dollar!
ReplyDelete"Indy is as Indy does."
ReplyDelete-Forest Gump
You guys nailed it - one guy working the Web for Final Four night with a local team and the year's biggest story.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand I would love to know how many Gannett sports writers and columnists covered the game? I know of at least six. Sure they might have had a local slant or two - but is that really the best call in these times to send multiple people from the same company to cover the same game?
10:13 am: My sympathies are with the individual. Any postmordem on this and the earlier photo illustration issue ought to look at the role any understaffing might have played.
ReplyDelete