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In the newspaper world, mistakes are the bane of a journalist's existence. Invariably, they happen -- and for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes you can chalk it up to plain human error. Other times it is due to carelessness or the result of cutting corners in the editing process. The list goes on.  I'm not one to throw rocks at other journalists for the mistakes that get into print, but after seeing the same error in The Kentucky Standard two weeks in a row I felt it worth a mention in this space.In a story that ran the week of July 13th slugged "Council approves first reading of sign ordinance," the second paragraph of the story refers to the mayor of Bardstown as "Mayor Mike Heaton." The following week another city council story -- this one slugged "Bid accepted for Town Creek Interceptor project" -- again referred to the city's mayor as "Mayor Mike Heaton." The wise-acre part of me wondered if Mayor Dick Heaton was on vacation and had left a relative in charge for a couple of weeks. Heaven knows I have collected my fair share of published errors, both in print and on the web. And the writer who made the mistakes is the newspaper's newest writer, having joined the staff in May, so you generally cut the newbies some slack. How do mistakes like that get published? The editing process at a newspaper usually includes several stages of editing and proofreading. When the process is circumvented or bypassed, then embarassing mistakes can sometimes be the result. And readers notice these things, even if they don't say anything. In the more recent story slugged "Fire halts Tower Automotive production" the second paragraph uses a term that's not in my Associated Press Stylebook in the sentence "An employee at the factory, 850 Withrow Court, called Nelson County dispatch at 11:25 a.m. after spotting smoke on the Westside of the plant. " The term is used more than once, capitalized both times. OK, perhaps it isn't a factual error, but to this reader it stood out like a red flag and makes you wonder who else read and proofread the story. There's a process that works to eliminate such dumb mistakes, and the newspaper has the resources -- and people -- to do that. As a former newspaper writer, I know all too well that mistakes happen, even when editing procedures are in place. But the majority of readers only see the mistakes and can only question "Does anyone edit this stuff?" |