Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.2.
About four years ago, at the next-to-last newspaper I edited, we had a horrible number of mistakes one issue. To me, “horrible” is more than two errors, but this was really bad. Dang near spelled my own name wrong.
The next issue, I explained, “Our paper has something for everyone. If you’re the type who isn’t happy unless you have something to nitpick, we have kindly provided you with lots and lots of typos.”
Well, same thing seems to have happened in the last issue of the Post. No surprise; there are always a thousand little annoyances that crop up when it’s a first issue. Jill and I were up until 2 a.m. the night before our deadline, and woke up bright and early at 6 a.m. the next morning to proofread. Even Jill, who sometimes can be the most obnoxious morning person (okay, so I’m a night person) was a zombie that day. You try proofreading on four hours’ sleep. That’s no excuse. That’s an explanation.
This being the Post’s first month, I hope you’ll bear with the glitches, and many thanks to the community for being so gracious while pointing them out to me over and over and over. My apologies to Pleasant Ridge—whose name I mixed with Cottage Hill to get “Pleasant Hill”—and the Lions Club for the directions to their Flea Market, and for overusing the word “intersection” in the top story, and a hundred other things. Newspapers should, after all, contain news, not wild inaccuracies.
And many thanks to our contributors. Their additons to the Post are greatly and personally appreciated. The Post doesn’t appreciate how some people attempted to send in “news” about specials and sales. That’s not news, that’s advertising. If you’d like to talk advertising with Jill, call her at 268-3420. Otherwise, stop trying to play the “new guy” for a sucker.
Next-to-lastly, to Lake of the Pines residents, we discovered the Auburn post office is going to be consistently a day behind in getting you the Post. At this point I’d say something snotty about the mail, but the Grass Valley post office has been wonderful; it’s just Auburn that can’t get its act together. That’s what you get for having your own zip code. We’re trying to figure out a way to get it to you earlier… but no guarantees just yet. Meanwhile, don’t worry—you will still get the Post.
And lastly, if you think you’ve got something interesting and publishable, as always, give me a ring at 268-3420.
Kent Leslie, managing editor
Update, 9/3/2009: The first issue was chock-full of typos, which didn’t go over well with certain members of the public. For some people, typographical errors are completely unforgivable. These folks promptly decided Countryside Post was produced by amateurs and stopped reading.
Usually a paper will put its errors into a tiny box titled “Corrections” and tuck it on the same page that they use to continue the front-page articles. Some will tuck it elsewhere in the news section and let you hunt for it. In it, they’ll repeat the mistake, then correct it. If there’s anything by way of apology, it will consist only of “The Post regrets the error.” But regret is not an apology. It means you wish you hadn’t done it, but it’s not the same as repentance and remorse. It’s certainly no attempt at restitution for the error. A common complaint about newspapers is that they bury their mistakes when they’re supposed to be about printing facts and truth.
Well, not me. I was gonna be upfront with the Post’s mistakes. They were going straight into my column, and I was gonna apologize for them. This surprised a few people—they hadn’t seen such behavior before—and pretty much silenced everyone who might complain that corrections never receive the appropriate attention.
“Stealth ads” are what I call the articles that attempt to publicize a business, a service, or a new product, and get some free advertising disguised as “news.” Newspapers get stealth ads all the time. Most of them reject them outright. Some of them honestly don’t care and run them. There was this one Sacramento TV station that ran them regularly on their 10 o’clock news; either their news director didn’t know any better, or he was getting kickbacks. In my case, I rejected every last one of them and wouldn’t run them, or anything that resembled them. Shoppers do that, and I didn’t want the Post confused with a shopper.
The issue with the post offices was like this: The southern part of Nevada County was actually serviced by two post offices. The area south of Bear River Junction, which included the large gated community of Lake of the Pines, was covered by the Auburn post office in nearby Placer County, and had the address, “Auburn, CA 95602.” The area north was covered by the Grass Valley post office, and had the address, “Grass Valley, CA 95949.” Consequently we had to deliver newspapers to both post offices every Wednesday so they’d circulate it Thursday, and Auburn was always slower. If they had “too many things to deliver” that Thursday, they’d deliver the Post on Friday. It was maddening when I ran an article announcing an event on Thursday, and Auburn delivered it late—so I just had to make sure I didn’t do that.