I had just turned on my smartphone last Wednesday after landing in Detroit, the site of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s annual convention.
The subject of one of the 50 or so emails downloading to my phone immediately caught my eye. It was from Irene, the assistant editor, and the subject was “Typo on front cover.”
I responded to Irene with a one-word email. “Shit,” it said.
So, here’s how Obama became Obamam on last week’s cover.
On my final review of the cover—after everyone else had given it their OK—I noticed that the word “state” in the phrase “Grand Canyon State” was not capitalized. I marked the proof and handed it to Andrew, our art director. He made the correction, and gave me a new proof. In the midst of the deadline-day rush, I quickly looked at the new proof, saw that “State” was properly capitalized, and approved the proof.
Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that an “m” was somehow added to the end of the word “Obama” while that final correction was being made.
Blame for the error sits on my shoulders, and mine alone. I sincerely apologize for the mistake.
A small number of twits took to the Internet to cite the typo as evidence that the Tucson Weekly is in need of better proofing and editing. To those people, I say this: This is the first significant mistake the Weekly has had on its cover, at least that I can recall, in more than eight years. And while we’re not perfect—thankfully, we’ve never claimed to be—and we do make mistakes, I’ll put the editing and proofing in the Weekly up against that of any other publication in Southern Arizona.
Again, my apologies for the stupid mistake.
• And now for something completely different: Congratulations to Renée Downing for earning an honorable mention in the Political Column category at the 2012 Altweekly Awards, announced at the aforementioned AAN convention last week. The honor is much-deserved.
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.
jimmy, The Weekly is remarkably error free and the attention to detail is evident. you all do great work. i’m proud! keep it up.
There is a command in InDesign that uses the m key. I’ve accidentally added “m” to documents by mistyping this command. As you said, mistakes happen. I agree that the Weekly is remarkably well-edited, particularly given today’s rip and post editorial environment. You can’t read a single article in Salon without seeing a typo, and even the vaunted NYT has had some significant bloopers on their website. I forgive you.
Only people who have ever actually worked in the news biz have the right to complain!
Not nearly as bad an error as I saw on a publication put out by a national hospital organization some years ago.
They published a monthly tabloid style paper and there in huge headlines on the front page was, “Hospitals Must Watch Their Pubic Image.”
The media director and I nearly fell off our chairs laughing at that one.
A typo once in a while can’t be avoided and your critics can just learn that humans on tight schedules produce media and they can be forgiven for an occasional gaffe.
Try listening (if you dare) or watching electronic media, especially in this town. I’ve learned recently that there is a town in Arizona with fantastic cliff views..ah yes..”Sedonia”. Some TV stations have trouble spelling their own reporters’ names on what ought to be stock graphics. Radio..well, there probably could be a book written on local gaffes. There used to be an Associated Press guide to place names in Arizona, as well as proper pronunciation of the names of prominent people. Would somebody PLEASE dig one up and send it around?