"And yes," says page designer and Des Moines Register alum Charles Apple, "that’s a front page that you’ll see time and time again, whenever page-one errors are talked about. This is up there with 'Dewey defeats Truman.'"
The paper apologized to readers in a Page-One note yesterday.
Apple, it's worth noting, has cautioned against centralizing copy editing amid the development of the five Design Studio hubs now being rolled out.
Earlier: What are your latest press deadlines?
[Image: Apple]
Big error, you betcha. But to be fair, Jim, the design hubs haven't rolled out yet and GPG does their design and copy editing right there on site, so you can't chalk it up to the design hubs or centralized copy editing, so that's a bit of a red herring. If anything you could blame reduced staff and burnout resulting from low morale.
ReplyDeleteCharles Apple knows nothing about copy editing. Referring to him like he's some sort of expert is yet another of the hiccups of this blog.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, 11:16. But how would centralized page production help prevent such situations in the future? The project's goal, at a minimum, is to cut costs, which means fewer eyes on more pages.
ReplyDeleteGreen Bay is already a mini-copy editing hub, producing the daily editions for the Press-Gazette, the Herald Times Reporter in Manitowoc and a myriad of weekly and twice-weekly papers, as well as magazines and custom pubs. I don't think they do The Sheboygan Press, but it's possible (or it's done in the Oshkosh hub that handles the Northwestern and the Fond du Lac Reporter).
ReplyDeleteThe Times-Picayune just let a dummy head on a sports page get past the desk. Fewer deskers mean more glaring mistakes.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you believe it is an error…perhaps it is just an opinion of a Packer fan in reference to Chicaco..smells good to Green Bay
ReplyDelete11:30 is incorrect. Many page designers know plenty about copy editing.
ReplyDeleteBad, but no way is It "up there with Dewey defeats Truman." Now, if it said "On to Seattle" that might be "up there."
ReplyDeleteJim and Apple are incorrect. This is nothing like Dewey defeats Truman.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Jim. Wrong again.
Green Bay is MAJOR football country.
ReplyDeleteHow big does the type have to be to spot an error?
ReplyDeleteIt's AMAZING that no one noticed.
This is the kind of error that happens when you work with a CHAIN GANG mentality. Ha, ha, ha!
ReplyDeleteThe Sheboygan Press is paginated in the Oshkosh hub with the Oshkosh Northwestern and Fond du Lac Reporter.
ReplyDeleteFor their part, sales reps have already seen the wonders of "centralization" (the evisceration of local common knowledge) with the ads that come back from 2AdPro and the GPC's. If I read one more time about how Gannett is a "community-based" organization, I'm going to start taking liquid lunches.
ReplyDeleteGive it up, Jim. It's nothing like Dewey defeats Truman. There's even someone commenting on Apple's site about how stupid that comparison is.
ReplyDeleteIt has nothing to do with whether football is big in Green Bay or not.
Don't be a putz, Jim. Those mistakes are nothing alike.
ReplyDelete"Many page designers know plenty about copy editing. "
ReplyDeleteNot that many - It's been my finding that if you have a lick of design/creative ability you aren't the best copy editor and vice versa. always wondering why those tasks get put together.
As a lifelong Green Bay resident, it is a huge deal. These are collectors items for Packer fans. The paper is one of the things that represents GB and northeast Wisconsin. It makes us look like a bunch of rubes.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't Dewey defeats Truman, but its not good.I'd love to blame this on staff cutbacks or inadaquate training, but really it's about proofing the front page. This is about laziness. We're not talking about spelling Wauwatosa or Winnetka or Waunakee. We're talking about Green Bay Packers vs. Chicago Bears. You don't live in Wisconsin for a week and not understand that.
ReplyDeleteThis happens because there are two few eyes looking at pages. How many copy editor do you figuring are working nights at most places? With furloughs and layoffs, I think even the biggest papers are lucky to get three sets of eyes on every story. The hubs might make this sort of thing less likely.
ReplyDeleteSounds like another money grabbing idea to me. You know that double struck coins are worth a great deal? How mistakes on stams are worth a bunch. These papers will be hits on E-Bay, just like the Obama collector edition.
ReplyDeleteYou have to look for trends because stuff happens. How many hed busts do they have in a year? Is it getting better or worse? This is pretty bad, but big and small staffs have run a few doosies in their day.
ReplyDelete"This happens because there are two few eyes looking at pages. How many copy editor do you figuring are working nights at most places?"
ReplyDeleteFunny in too (note the spelling) many ways:
-- People use two fewer eyes? No wonder mistakes get through!
-- The rampant errors in the statement are beautiful.
-- As always, the mastery of the absolute obvious.
Great blog, Jim. You're blowing the lid off journalism -- not enough copy editor(s) reading copy? Stop the presses!
I think it is deliberate sabotage. The "g" is in the middle of the keyboard, while the "c" is a line down. It is impossible to confuse them. Ask yourself when you made the mistake of putting a c in the place of where you intended a g. If it is deliberate, management must ask about the wisdom of cutting back desk operations.
ReplyDeleteIf legend is correct, The Press Gazette also won a dubious award for the "Thompson's pen is his sword" headline a few years back. Thompson being then Governor Tommy Thompson and, because of the point size used in the headline, there was little or no space between the words "pen" and "is".
ReplyDeleteOne problem here is that C and G don't look greatly different as all-cap letters in that type face. In lower case, the error would have stuck out immediately. This doesn't excuse missing the typo, but I can understand how it was missed.
ReplyDeleteSimple spell check program that everyone is SUPPOSED to run would have caught that even if the "eyes" didn't.
ReplyDeleteAs a copy editor at slimmed-down West Coast Gannett paper, I understand how it happened. There is more to do with fewer people to do it. However, spellchecking it would have caught it.
ReplyDeleteI hate working in a situation where the higher-ups clearly don't care about quality. They only act like it when a big error slips through.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletePlease. That's hardly up there with the worst I saw last week. It's a typo. Memorable Page 1 screw ups involve major fact errors. Miami Herald listing the wrong Super Bowl teams a decade ago, that was a screw up. The Chicago Sun-Times running a poster picture of the wrong baseball player two weeks ago, that's a major screw up. Your Dewey hyperbole led me to think they had the Packers losing or playing Seattle or the Jets or something egregious. I noticed the typo after I exhausted those possibilities.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteOne of the all-time greats was when the Journal News in Westchester ran a photo of James Brown the soul singer to accompany a story about James Brown, the new NYC police commissioner.
ReplyDeleteThe mixup was blamed on a new photo filing system, in which, I believe, the editor couldn't see the photo.
Boy, the Post and Daily News really razzed the Journal News over that one!
About that "Thompson's pen is a sword" headline cited by @9:09. That also came from Green Bay. It just was an unfortunate choice of words that were properly spaced in print.
ReplyDeleteIt became legend when pranksters at the Wisconsin state Capitol saw the headline, cut it up, pasted the words together and made copies.
Doesn't matter. All will be forgiven Monday morning when the headlines say "PACK IS BACK IN THE SUPPER BOWL!"
ReplyDelete...sorry guys...
SUPPER BOWL? Really?
ReplyDeleteEvery day I imagine Gannett people seeing this site and thanking their lucky stars they unloaded most of the people who post here.
more excuses here than a reality check. headline wrong???? no big deal? WTF? another quality paper by Gannett.
ReplyDeleteIt's a mistake ... in big type. But it was presented as 'The Next Dewey.' It's not even close. It's a typo at a 45K circ. Two weeks ago, Chicaco, err, Chicago Sun-Times ran a full-page photo of 'Matt Garza' on their back cover after the Cubs acquired him in a trade. Except the photo wasn't Garza. Now, that's a major screw-up by a major metro.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete