We All Make Mistakes - FishbowlDC

Morning Oopsy: Suspect’s Name Tough to Spell

Betsy Rothstein — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:45:10 +0000

NBC Washington had a hard time with one of the Boston bombing suspects’ names. But 21 minutes later they corrected it and admitted the error of their ways.

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Morning Oopsy: Mother Jonés Turns French?

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:30:36 +0000

When you’re asking people to cough up money to fund your job, might be a good idea to at least spell check the letter.

In a plea to readers this morning, Clara Jeffery, Co-editor of Mother Jones, includes multiple, strange “é”‘s in the middle of the pitch asking for $5 to $10 so they can reach their $90,000 goal this month.

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Who Is ‘Rand Black’? An NJ Mystery

Eddie Scarry — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:20:49 +0000

Each weekday morning NJ‘s Communications Director Ben Fishel sends out an email blast with links to the magazine’s top reads. In the subject line is a short summary of what’s in the email.

“Whom Does the Colbert Bump, Bump? GOP Adopts Buzzfeed Model, What Ails American Politics? and More” is an example of a normal subject line to one of Fishel’s emails. Tuesday morning’s email from Fishel, however, contained an anomaly. “Obama’s Budget Plan, Can Rand Black Attract Black Voters? CNN Revives Crossfire, And More,” it said, emphasis added.

Who is Rand Black?

A link in the email went to a story on Sen. Rand Paul‘s (R-Ky.) upcoming speech at Howard University, a historically black college. Presumably, that’s the story the subject was referencing.

In an email, Fishel confirmed that “Rand Black” was a mistake and that he was “in the middle of issuing a correction.”

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One Typo: OK. But 10? Come on, Daily Download

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:00:32 +0000

We all spread ourselves too thin. If you work in daily online media you know the feeling of working late, being bleary-eyed and making brainless errors you kick yourself over later. Until you make more and land in a monster pit of despair. We’ve been there and we’ll be there again.

But today, Daily Download founder, CNN “Reliable Sources” regular and Daily Beast Contributor Lauren Ashburn goes to the well of mistakes 10 times in a story timestamped April 8 on cable’s gender wars and the snarl between FNC’s Bill O’Reilly and conservative radio host Laura Ingraham last week.

One. Two. Even three errors? Fine, forgivable. A terrible given at times in a world where copy editors are scarce. But 10 looks like you took too much Ambien and wrote the story while driving to 7-Eleven after consuming a midnight snack you can’t remember eating. Let’s be honest. Ten looks like Denzel Washington in Flight in which he gets obliterated, wakes up to lines of coke, downs one or five screwdrivers and turns the plane upside down.

Does someone need a few days at the beach?

Also curious, at the bottom is a note explaining that the story first appeared in The Daily Beast, which, in fact, it did on April 5 under Ashburn’s byline and this headline:

Bill O’Reilly’s Macho Moment in On-Air Confrontation With Laura Ingraham

Compare this to Daily Download‘s headline:

Cable’s Gender Wars: Bill O’Reilly Vs. Laura Ingraham

The explanatory note reads: “This piece brought to you through our content partnership with The Daily Beast, where it first appeared.”

As many know, Howard Kurtz, on the board of The Daily Download, also writes for Daily Beast-Newsweek and hosts CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” And Ashburn herself is a Daily Beast contributor, as stated above. But strangely enough, only a fraction of the errors turned up in The Daily Beast‘s story — just one, the incorrect spelling of “smoothe.” Which means something went incredibly awry when they transferred the story. Maybe try cut and pasting?

We requested comment from Ashburn on the “content partnership” between The Daily Download and The Daily Beast and what exactly that means. We also mentioned the 10 errors in case she has a comment on those.

See the parade of errors in the Daily Download story…

continued…

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Afternoon Oopsy!

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:30:16 +0000

Someone hasn’t had enough caffeine, or a mild case of dyslexia is settling in today for CBS Political Director and Slate‘s John Dickerson who sent out the following subject line to his readers on a story he wrote on Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.

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Morning Oopsy!

Eddie Scarry — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:13:19 +0000

Two gay stories, one headline.

A story posted by Politico‘s Kevin Cirilli at 7:45 Monday morning headlined “Will Portman explains dad’s delay” had absolutely nothing to do with Will Portman or his father, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). Instead, the article was an aggregated item from the Los Angeles Times regarding the gay cousin of Chief Justice John Roberts, who will sit in this week on Supreme Court hearings concerning same-sex marriage.

The same story appeared elsewhere on the site under the appropriate “John Roberts’ gay cousin to attend hearing” headline.

Roughly one hour later… continued…

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Politico’s Mike Allen Wants to Know When he F&%ks Up

Betsy Rothstein — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:30:05 +0000

Listen up Politico Playbook readers. Author Mike Allen wants to know when he screws up, and who better to tell him than you? Or NYT‘s Jonathan Weisman, whoever gets to him first.

Has he been consulting the Dalai Lama?

This morning he has dreamed up a new feature. It’s called QUALITY CONTROL. It’s bolded and in all-caps. And he doesn’t just want the little nitpicky bullsh-t crap that everyone gets (although that’s perfectly acceptable too), he wants the “larger truths” as well.

This should be fun to watch.

Have a look. continued…

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Politico’s Accidental Headline

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:21:54 +0000

The Daily Standard‘s Managing Editor Michael van der Galien is quick on his feet. This afternoon he screengrabbed a Politico headline just before they were able to snatch it down. The headline was atop an AP story about two U.S. troops losing their lives in Afghanistan.

Someone over in Rosslyn, Va. may be in a hell of a lot of trouble this afternoon.

Politico has added a note to the copy.

“Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story included unrelated text that was inadvertently written into the headline field. The text was not connected to the story but part of a separate conversation. We regret the error.”

Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris told FishbowlDC: “Just to emphasize: the extraneous text that went in the headline was both inadvertent and comply unrelated to the story. This was a completely separate conversation taking place on another open program, and a fragment from that conversation went in the headline field.”

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Weatherman Punishes Himself for Faulty Forecast

Betsy Rothstein — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:30:13 +0000

Fox5′s Tucker Barnes put himself in the corner for giving a faulty weather report this week. Watch as his colleagues chuckle at him as he hangs his head in shame and self-deprecatingly takes responsibility for the error of his ways.

Watch the video, courtesy myfoxdc.com.

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Morning Oopsy: ABC’s Cruz Cruise

Eddie Scarry — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:45:18 +0000

ABC News’ Michael Falcone published a story on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this morning with an all too appropriate lede. “The Ted Cruz headlines just won’t stop,” it said.

It’s true. “Has Ted Cruz Hit The Tipping Point? [[DO NOT PUB]],” blared the headline when it made its way our email inbox via ABC News’ RSS feed (with a link that led to a dead end). The headlines just won’t stop. Even when they’re not ready for publication.

There’s no stopping the Cruz Cruise.

Falcone’s story was fixed shortly thereafter.

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Dr. Oz is Not a Copy Editor

Betsy Rothstein — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:42:24 +0000

Talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz may be an expert on poop, but spelling and proofing charts may be a weak point. Oz appeared at the National Governors Association winter meeting, which aired on C-SPAN2.

This photograph comes to us courtesy of C-SPAN Communications Director Howard Mortman. See if you can find the typos in Oz’s chart. The first bullet reads: “Cannot lost waist without muscle.”

On a positive note, Oz told the governors that they need to have sex at least twice a week. He called it “highly achievable” for this group of individuals. Watch here.

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Morning Oopsy: WaPo Spells Barry’s Name Wrong

Betsy Rothstein — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:00:16 +0000

WaPo can be such a fair-weather friend when it comes to a certain ex-mayor. And so it was last week when the hometown daily couldn’t be bothered to look up the correct spelling of Marion Barry, the city’s colorful, twice-reelected, former mayor and now a councilman representing Ward 8. We know it’s hard, as most outlets are coping with a shortage of hands on deck. Still, most readers know that Barry is not Berry, and therefore, a glaring error even if it is only on a photo caption on page B5.

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Morning Oopsy

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 07:00:48 +0000

RNC’s eagle-eyed Communications Director Tim Miller spotted this error on the program at the Washington Press Club Foundation Dinner last night.

“[Jason Chaffetz] gets burned by the press club,” Miller wrote on Twitter with this accompanying photograph. Turns out Chaffetz is a lawmaker who represents Utah’s 3rd congressional district. So nowhere near New Mexico.

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Morning Oopsy: The Week’s Ambinder Keeps Readers Hanging

Betsy Rothstein — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 07:00:43 +0000

Throughout the night Twitter was ablaze with reaction to The Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson‘s response to women being integrated into combat posts. In case you were actually, well, sleeping — a rarity in Washington — he wrote on Twitter, “The latest feminist victory: the right to get your limbs blown off in war.” At 1:30 a.m. The Week‘s Marc Ambinder whipped up a post on the “5 silliest reactions to women in combat.” Number one on the list was Carlson’s. Only Ambinder never finishes his thought and leaves us hanging with this sentence:

“Society protects the vulnerable not”

Come on The Week — did your proofers knock off early? Let’s hope the powers that be let Ambinder finish his thought sometime today.

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Politico Memo Renames Techy ‘Christ’

Betsy Rothstein — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:30:37 +0000

Yesterday Politico, along with five other media outlets, launched their Powerjobs site, dedicated to connecting Washington’s high profile employers connect with potential employees. What’s humorous is the internal memo that Politico‘s Chief Revenue Office Roy Schwartz sent out yesterday in which he inflates a regular member of the development team to the level of Christ.

Thankfully, we don’t think Chris Buddie, Politico‘s Director of User Experience, has a god complex. But strangely enough, his bio says that when he’s not busy diagramming user-flows, he’s in his woodshop handcrafting furniture and his famous cutting boards.

See the memo… continued…

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