While a number of U.S. newspapers put the newly estimated seven billion world population figure out on page one Monday, Express — the Washington Post‘s free commuter tab — instead used it as today’s cover story.
With one little problem. Here is today’s front page, as seen at the Newseum.
Yep. The number shown there is closer to seven hundred million. That’s a good 6,300,000,001 less than the number the story was about.
Apparently, a staffer caught the error sometime after deadline. Betsy Rothstein of MediaBistro‘s FishbowlDC blog writes:
While the presses were not officially stopped, the plates were changed at a natural point in the run. Our insider won’t name names as to who was responsible, but here’s how it all went down: Designer arrives home, talks to partner about number on cover, realizes ‘OH FUCK,’ e-mails editor/production manager, fixed and resent.
The corrected copy Rothstein posted is on the right.
 
“Only” ten to fifteen thousand bad copies made it to newstands today, Rothstein reports. Average daily distribution of Express is nearly 700 billion 183,916.
Find her first blog post here and her follow-up post here.
This isn’t the first time Express has made our shame-shame list. Sigh…
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You know who else needs a copy editor?
Local TV news operations. Chicago’s WMAQ-TV in particular. And Harrisburg’s Fox43 TV news. And Local 15 News in Mobile, Ala. And Fox2Now in St. Louis. And Charlotte’s WBTV. And other local TV news operations. And CBS local media. And the web operation for DC101 radio. And CNN and CNN Money and Fox News (and Fox News again) and the BBC and German news channel N24. And Martha Stewart’s TV operation. And the Disney Channel. And creators of mobile apps. And Google News’ ‘bots. And Baseball jersey manufacturers. And Georgetown University. And Kansas State University. And the University of Iowa. And the New York Jets, the Minnesota Vikings, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Nationals (boy, do they need a copy editor). And the National Hockey League. And Fox Sports. And college athletic department ticket offices. And the Virginia general assembly. And college alumni magazines. And pharmacies. And the makers of Sudafed. And Borders bookstore. And the U.S. Postal Service. And government agencies and political candidates. And Tea Party candidates. And the White House. And city and county Boards of Elections. Both the state of Pennsylvania and its department of transportation. And Pittsburgh skywriters. And road paving contractors. And the city of Norfolk, Va. And the Ohio Dept. of Transportation. And South African traffic cops. And gas stations. And billboard companies. And sign painters. And Home Depot and manufacturers of “hoodies.†And T-shirt designers. And more T-shirt designers. And Old Navy. And rubber stamp designers. And glass etchers. And Starbucks. And restaurants, breakfast joints, Chinese restaurants and cake decorators. And more cake decorators. And drive-in movie theater managers. And romance novelists. And South Africa’s New Age and Sunday Independent newspapers. And Dublin’s Sunday Business Post. And newspapers in the U.K. And the Washington Post (Hey! A repeat offender!), the Post‘s Express tab, the New York Times (Hey! Another repeat offender!), the New York Post, Wall Street Journal Europe, Newsday, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times (Yet another repeat offender!), the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat & Chronicle, the Seattle Times, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Portland Oregonian, the Durham, N.C., Herald-Sun, the Missoula, Mont., Missoulian, the Times-Record of Denton, Md., the Amarillo (Texas) Globe News, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Waynesboro News Virginian, the Virginian-Pilot, the Des Moines Register, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Gannett’s N.Y. Central Media hub, the Carbondale, Ill., Southern Illinoisian and the Canarsie Courier of New York City. And the Associated Press. And Mann’s Jeweler’s Accent magazine. And Investment News magazine. And Time magazine.
