This is an early favorite for 2009’s Typo of the Year. The Daily Universe, a student paper at BYU, recalled and trashed the full printing (18,000 copies) of its Monday edition after discovering a typo. Notably, it was a typo that could have offended the Mormon chruch church. The paper issued a brief apology and also published a lengthy article to explain the error. The apology:
In printed copies of Monday’s Daily Universe, due to a spelling error in a photo caption, the word “apostles” was replaced with a different word. The Daily Universe apologizes to the Quorum of the Twelve and our readers for the error.
Not surprisingly, the mistake was a result of deadline pressure and the spell checker. That’s an all too common combination. From the article about the error:
The Daily Universe took the extraordinary step Monday of re-calling all its 18,500 copies from newsstands around campus and the community to reprint the entire 14-page issue due to a typographical error on the front page.
A spelling error appeared in a photo caption in which the word “apostle” was rendered as “apostate.” In referring to activities at the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last weekend, the caption read in part, “Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates and other general authorities raise their hands in a sustaining vote. . . .”
Once the mistake was noticed, all available copies of the newspaper were removed from the racks and replaced with a sign directing students to view the paper online, said Brad Rawlins, chair of the Department of Communications.
“We are reprinting the paper and we will have the corrected version back on the racks by mid-afternoon,” Rawlins said. “This shows the deep concern we have on the matter. We don’t think this error is glib or cute or humorous. We understand people will take offense to the error. We ourselves are offended as a department for this error. We have a deep regret that it appeared in today’s paper.”
Daryl Gibson, director of NewsNet IT, said this is the first time the paper has been pulled because of a news error in his more than 30 years of working at BYU.
The misspelling was an unintentional error, said Rich Evans, editorial manager for The Daily Universe.
“Our copy editor in charge of the front page, who was under deadline pressure, was using spell check on her page and had misspelled the word apostle,” Evans said. “One of the first options that came up on InDesign’s spell check suggestions was the word apostate. Unfortunately that’s the one she clicked on. It still should have been caught by two more levels of review after that, but again with deadline looming, the worst possible thing happened.”
In interviews Monday morning, staff at The Daily Universe explained the editorial process in which the error occurred. A student photographer who was at General Conference in Salt Lake City wrote a caption to be used with a photo-graph of several members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The photo was then placed into the newspaper layout — accomplished in a software program called Adobe InDesign — by a student copy editor who reviewed the information along with the rest of the paper. The caption was then reviewed again by a professional staff proofreader who checks for additional mistakes. This process is often compressed into a short time due to deadline.
“There’s a million different things that the copy editor has to look for, including headlines, captions, spelling of people’s names, making sure pictures are up to the Honor Code standards and so on,” said Joshua Flake, student news editor of The Daily Universe. “Unless the photographer needs help, the reporters rarely see the caption.” …
Thanks, Ben!
