Have you ever been kind of bummed because you screwed something up, when someone comes along and makes an even bigger screw-up than you did -- and in a sick way, it makes you feel a little better? Well, that happened to some Tribune staffers last week, thanks to The Associated Press.
As you may have heard, the AP sort of let it leak last Friday that Bob Hope had died. The only problem was that while this report leaked out on the AP's web site, the comedian was at home eating breakfast. And as we all know, dead people have real problems eating eggs.
Apparently, some AP staffer was working on Hope's obituary (it's a common practice for major news organizations to have obituaries of famous people prepared just in case), and saved it -- onto the web site. It was only out there briefly, but that was long enough for an Arizona Republican, Rep. Bob Stump -- with that name, let's please hope he's not an environmentalist -- to announce Hope's "death" on the House floor and to a live audience on C-SPAN. Locally, KRNV Channel 4 announced that Hope was toast (as opposed to eating toast) because of the information chain reaction. However, the error was soon discovered, and the incorrect stories were retracted.
And, boy, was the AP embarrassed. But it made us Tribune writers feel a tad better.
The week before the Hope controversy, we had all been perusing clips of stories to submit for some journalism awards. However, many of us were a bit peeved to discover that a decent number of our stories were... well... not good entries, because they had some serious typos.
Let's face it: Typos are a fact of newspapers. Every newspaper, from the New York Times to the Daily Sparks Tribune, has typos in it. (Gosh, I love comparing us to the New York Times.) People are human, things get by spell check, and mistakes happen.
And we know: The Tribune has had more than its fair share of little goofs. But it is very hard for a staff of four news writers, one sports writer, one sports editor and one managing editor to put out a 16-page newspaper every day before 1:30 p.m., especially when we're picking on each other so much. However, that's no excuse.
We also can't be later than 1:30 p.m. either, because then the people from the print shop and circulation and everyone gets mad at the newsroom. And, it must be pointed out that the Tribune is housed in a former post office, so we must always be alert for someone going postal.
So, some misspellings get by, and some omitted words -- and occasionally an entire half-story -- get left out. But at least we have not really, really embarrassed ourselves. Yet.
There have been a few near-misses. My favorite was several months ago, on a day that we were behind schedule. One of our stories quoted Sgt. Bob Towery, the public information officer for the Washoe County Sheriff's Office. However, the "l" was left out of public -- making Towery a whole different type of information officer. Quite frankly, I do not think the Tribune is in need of any pubic information. At least I hope not. Anyway, we caught the error, just in time -- unlike the spell check, because "pubic" is indeed a word. Much to the delight of Beavis and Butt-head.
The other day, there was another somewhat amusing typo -- however, this one made it in the newspaper. The lead paragraph of last Wednesday's Police Blotter read that "he (a suspect) was reportedly flipped off a police officer." The "was" should have been deleted -- but several people I talked to thought maybe a "by a" should have been added, thinking initially that the suspect was flipped off by a police officer. Sorry, no. If necessary, cops have more potent weapons to use than their middle finger.
The typo stories could go on and on. And on. But the fact is, Tribune readers probably know more typo stories about our paper than we writers do, because you get to look at this paper with fresh eyes every day. And I would like to, from myself, apologize for the errors -- even ones that may get by in this very column, to you, the pubic.
Jimmy Boegle, a fifth-generation Nevadan, wishes typos would go the way of Bruce Breslow's cell phone. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at jiboegle@alumni.stanford.org.