The Deseret News of Salt Lake City needs a copy editor to check over its main headline on page one. You do not want to make a mistake like this in print.
That was Friday’s front page. Here’s what the entire page looked like, as seen Friday at the Newseum.
This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite parody headlines, from a faux front from the Onion, ostensibly from the start of World War II:
The little text at right is a jump line. This headline is continued on page 2, it says.
Thanks to Matthew Piper of the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner for the tip and to Rachel Piper of the Salt Lake City Weekly for confirming the error and for sending the picture.
—
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 KTLA channel 5 in Los Angeles. 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 ABC News 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 ESPN 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 the Echo of Gloucestershire, England. And the South China Morning Post. And the Washington Post (Hey! A repeat offender!), the Post‘s Express tab (Hey! Another repeat offender!) the New York Times (Yet another repeat offender!)(Hey! A third offense!), the New York Post, Wall Street Journal Europe, Newsday, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times (And yet another!), the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat & Chronicle, the Seattle Times, the weekly Manila Mail of San Francisco, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Portland Oregonian, the Durham, N.C., Herald-Sun, the Chapel Hill, N.C., News, the Missoula, Mont., Missoulian, the Times-Record of Denton, Md., the News-Herald of Willoughby, Ohio, 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 Daily Herald of Provo, Utah, 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.
I wonder if a font blew out when the page was output? It could have looked OK on the page onscreen but didn’t output correctly, which the newsroom might not have seen until it was actually printed.
Of course, it’s possible that’s not the case. I’m trying to decide if the font on that headline is the same as the font on the centerpiece, but I’m not enough of a font geek to be able to tell that.
I was there that night. It was a copy editor’s fault, haha. A copy editor told us we needed a period after Prop. 8, which bumped the whole headline over. The change was made in InCopy instead of InDesign, so nobody saw the print version until it was already set. Don’t worry, we set a chaser fixing it!