Well the inevitable happened. I made a mistake. How do I know? I received two e-mails: one from a reader, and from the coach. Both were pleased with the story but it was obvious that the error stuck out to them. I but the bullet, apologized and told my editor.
“It happens man, just keep doing your thing,” he said.
That’s all I can do. Of course I find myself calling coaches a third time now, but it’s in the interest of getting the information correct. Unfortunately I didn’t do that. It hurt knowing I gave a high school player the wrong classification, and forgot to mention she was a co-captain, rather than a solo captain. Especially when you talk to them but somehow, someway you end up messing up the next day.
Four stories later it still bothers me, but it’s a cruel reminder of how a silly mistake can ruin a story for a reader or someone close to your interviewee. Eventually it will wear off, but until then I walk with it over my head.
Funny and ironic side note: The story I wrote was about how a girl had her name misspelled by her coach as Merry Christmas. Her name? Mary Crit Smith. Go figure.
Ay Carlitos! I feel you bro. Trust me. What happened to me this week may not be at the same level as what happened to you, but damn is it bugging me. I run the risk of sounding like a baby, but here goes. I’m freaking out over a missing comma, a missing accent mark, over a word that should’ve been lower-case instead of capitalized and over a wrong attribution in a caption.
A number of things pissed me off. First, these omissions/incorrect style errors were not because of my neglect. I had nothing to do with them. They were due to the carelessness of another reporter. Second, I caught them on time (before the story ran) and when I tried to have them fixed, the response I got in return was “Stop looking at your story!” (in a frustrated and annoyed tone). Are you kidding me? I know if it had been one of her stories she would have gone as far as to call the page back. The audacity of some people.
a missing comma, a missing accent mark, over a word that should’ve been lower-case instead of capitalized and over a wrong attribution in a caption.
Guys—this is a great thread! Carlos, Thank you for starting! Let’s keep it going, as the place where we talk about the inevitable occupational hazard of mistakes & inaccuracies ...
Quick thought:
-- If there is a comma or a capitalization or something like that, don’t sweat it.
-- If there is an ERROR OF FACT (including misspelled names, wrong phone numbers, incorrect data, etc.) please take these steps:
--Let someone (your supervisor) know right away.
-- If it is your fault, be honest. Say, “I messed up. Here is what happened. Here is what I will do in the future to make sure… etc.”
-- KNOW the correction policy of your newspaper and make sure it is followed through. (It is NOT OKAY to have a bad fact and have it go uncorrected. A comma or a capitalization or a wrong verb tense is something else. It is just s--- that happens. Don’t lose sleep over it.)
Share your stories. Let us all know that we (and Carlos etc.) are not alone, and that as a group, we are following the Best Practices Possible when mistakes occur…
remembered I had a previous article in my hand with her name so I didnt even bother to ask for her title…
Oops.... I mean....
Argenis. Repeat after me: S--- happens.
You did the right thing, being up front and direct with ed. Guys: Important learning point for everyone from Argenis’s experience:
CLIPS ARE NOT RELIABLE. Use them for general sweep background only. But if there are any factual references, including name spellings and titles, 100 percent do not rely on. Clips are full of other people’s mistakes, to say nothing of outdated information— (don’t forget the dear old supposedly rock-solid Associated Press, the story about the pregnant Grandma...).
I am always pleased when a “mistake” is not life or career threatening, as above, but just a sting of a wake-up call....
Thx, Argenis, and—onward!
Not to be grim, but what is a career-ending mistake? Based on what I’ve heard through Chips orientation I figure it depends on the editor.
this isn’t grim at all… it’s a good question. A “career-ending mistake” would be along the lines of Jason Blair and Jack Kelly, of course; fabricating, making up sources/ quotes; compromising yourself or your news organization in some way, telling your editor you were on assignment in the desert when you were really in a bar somewhere fabricating your visit to the desert; “Jimmie’s World” was a career-ending mistake… and then, further down on the scale, but just as career-ending, being incompetent at your job, and so being, continuing to do harm to your news organization by virtue of that incompetence. Plagiarism in any form is career-ending (there are horror stories, folks—I mean, people who lift passages from Wikipedia without attributing, people who lift sections from someone’s column or another paper’s story without attributing.) Yes, sometimes they are cases of people truly overlooking/ forgetting to attribute, or lifting something from one electronic source to another and then “forgetting” that this chunk of copy came from another source, but the mea culpa and oops thing in cases like this don’t go over too well.
This is not grim. This is stuff you guys should be aware of. S--- Happens, in small ways, and career-ending ways.
The stuff you guys are talking about (mispelling a name, getting someone’s title wrong, etc. etc.) is forgivable and understandable and part of the learning curve. The other stuff… well....
(Aside: If those “understandables” become a trend, however, people will take note. There are many reporters out there, including some interns I know, whose name mentioned generates the response, “Wellllll, he/she appears to have an accuracy issue.....”—a rep that could lead to You Know What)
The obvious answers make sense. I guess what I’m really getting at is what “Oops” mistake could get you fired? Does it really depend on how kind an editor is?
I guess what I’m really getting at is what “Oops” mistake could get you fired? Does it really depend on how kind an editor is?
Hmm. I don’t think some random editor (versus a managing editor) would try to get you fired over an honest intern “mistake” or two (of the oops variety.) But as I suggested above, the potential problem begins when and if you start getting a reputation among editors as someone “with an accuracy issue.”
That rep could lead to your 1.) not getting hired on there, or 2.) the rep following you to your next gig (trust me—when editors go to hire, they look at the references you list on your resume, but they also call the guy they know at your former paper or the guy you worked for, whether they know him or not).
I don’t think it’s the “kindness” of one editor over another so much as it is the seriousness of the reputation for “having an issue...” does that make sense? (I also think it can’t be overstated enough to look out for those “bigger things,”: i.e., plagiarism, even inadvertent plagiarism..., which is a down the rat hole thing.)
(I also think it can’t be overstated enough to look out for those “bigger things,”: i.e., plagiarism, even inadvertent plagiarism..., which is a down the rat hole thing.)
AHHH!! I’m looking at my paper today and I see another error the copy editor added in an attempt to rewrite something I wrote. So frustrating. I know most readers know copy gets edited and therefore mistakes are removed/added. But in the end it’s my name in the byline that people see. Can’t do anything about it, I guess. Yeah, I’m talking about your people, SERGIO! j/k. And too bad we won’t be roommies this time around.
another error the copy editor added in an attempt to rewrite something I wrote.
Chris—what kind of error? Was it an error of fact? a bad verb tense? an obscured meaning? addition/ deletion of a key word? What you should do about it depends on the context. Probably want to respectfully bring it up with your editor, and see (especially if it’s something that is factually wrong/ clouded/ messes up the meaning) and ask if he might point it out (respectfully, tactfully) to the guy in charge of the desk.
Some of this stuff is just occupational hazard. But if it is something that truly mars the story, then the person responsible should know, one way or another. (And if it is factual, it should be corrected....)
It wasn’t a fact error or anything big. It was just a misspelling of a word that replaced a word I used.
I wrote, “The property is protected under an open space agreement between the residents and the city and is required to remain in its natural state.”
Published, “The property is protected under an open space agreement between the residents and the city, and a requirment is that it remain in its natural state.”
I understand that mistakes happen (I’ve made my share of them), and maybe I’m nitpicking just because “requirement” was spelled wrong. But if you edit something, you should at least be spelling the new material correctly.
I mean....
