After Deadline
Readers often catch the mistakes we miss
By John E. Simonds
Advertiser Reader Representative
Readers continue to make a difference at The Advertiser. Your calls alert the newsroom to things it has missed, or duplicated, in the pursuit of deadlines.
Accuracy matters to all, and The Advertiser's staff catches and fixes dozens of problems each day as the paper is edited. Editors are keenly aware, though, that readers don't see the mistakes we catch, only the ones we miss. And they wonder how in the world such mistakes could happen.
Several readers noticed Ann Landers' Sunday column was reprinted by mistake in Tuesday's paper, an editing miscue unnoticed until after publication. The problem was complicated because one editor was on vacation and the Sunday and weekday pages were proofread by different editors. The Advertiser made up for it by publishing the missing Tuesday column as an extra on Wednesday.
A close reader of the daily weather pages noted a repetition of the Monday and Tuesday lists of Mainland temperature ranges. She reported that the numbers were exactly the same two days in a row. Sure enough, the numbers were repeats, and Weather Data, the Wichita, Kan.-based service that gathers and electronically distributes weather page information, acknowledged its error. It had transmitted the same Mainland temperature list twice and we didn't notice.
Wire service articles reporting the death of former USC and Tampa Bay football coach John McKay appeared in the sports section on June 11 and in the main news obituary page on June 12. The Associated Press stories, which moved over both news and sports wires, were different enough to avoid being a complete repeat, but they were close.
And a Los Angeles Times news service dispatch about the fading future of the U.S. merchant marine service appeared in the June 9 main news section of The Advertiser and again on its July 9 business section cover page. Though separate sections of The Advertiser used the same story at different times a month apart, the lengthy article went through the same newsroom copy desk twice.
The editor who runs the copy desk was off duty the second time and was surprised to see the story in print again when he picked up his Monday Advertiser. Other readers may also have noticed the unusual re-publication, though none called here.
While refusing to take comfort in excuses, Advertiser editors acknowledge problems caused by news services resending the same story and also by different people on editing duty throughout a seven-day workweek. The L.A. Times news service says it transmitted the merchant marine story, with four photos, on June 7 but has no record of sending it again. Advertiser files show clearly that the Times retransmitted the story for July use.
And, while not everyone concurs, another factor may be the modern copy desk, no longer a concentrated area where many editors might sit at each other's elbows and occasionally talk about the copy they are reading. Today, a dozen copy editors sit at individual work stations, reading and editing on terminal screens. Copy may be transmitted from one editing stage to the next with a minimum of conversation, more efficient but perhaps less communal.
And speaking of talking to each other ...
A Dick Adair editorial cartoon in Tuesday morning's Advertiser included the wrong first name of a local labor leader from a well-known Hawai'i political family. Perhaps appropriate to cartooning, this was the result of a comedy of errors. Adair's original cartoon had labor leader Tony Rutledge referring to his fellow leader Eric Gill by his last name only, while Gill responded to Rutledge as "Tony."
Editorial Page Editor Jerry Burris suggested Adair make it first names all around. "Why not have Tony referring to Gill as Gary?" Burris asked, mistakenly using the name of Eric's brother. Adair reworded it, but the wrong name Gary stuck in his mind and on the page, despite proofreading by two of his editorial page colleagues.
We corrected the cartoon for our PM edition, perhaps making a bit of history as one of the few times that two versions of the same cartoon appeared on the same day. For those readers still confused about which Gill is which, check out Gary Gill's witty letter on this page today.
Communication is essential, in and out of the newsroom. Readers who think something is missing, is redundant or doesn't add up can call 525-8033 any time to ask about it. Editors' numbers also are listed at the top of section page covers, on the editorial page and on this Web site's Contact Us page.
