I had the opportunity to speak to several groups in the past week.
Of course, they all wanted to know about the convulsive changes that newspaper industry has undergone in the past decade.
I can't think of a business that has faced more upheaval.
I told them of my love/hate relationship with technology, along with some of the other issues I struggle with every day.
One of the things I talked about was the speed at which we do things - and deliver information - these days.
You know the old saying, "Speed kills?" Take my word for it. They aren't kidding.
Here's the problem.
You couple the speed with which we do things and the cuts in staff that we have undergone and you have a very dangerous concoction. The bottom line is that there are not nearly as many eyes seeing things before they are posted.
Take this blog for instance. My guess is that each day there are typos in it. That's not because I don't care. It's because I am doing about 1,000 things at once.
The truth is I post material online all the time that has not been seen by any other eyes.
That at times can lead to embarrassing mistakes.
Relax.
I'm not talking about "fake news."
These aren't major problems with facts in stories.
I'm talking about the bane of every person who works in a newsroom.
Typos.
Yesterday the very last thing I did before I left the newsroom was post our lead story online. It involved the actions of a patrolman in Lower Chichester after he heard a woman's screams. He confronted the suspect, thwarted a sexual assault, and very possibly saved the woman's life.
I had already created a front page for the story. I read Rose Quinn's story carefully, added a couple of photos, then posted it to our website, DelcoTimes.com.
And of course in the process I made a typo in the headline.
I left the I off of Chi. So instead of a Lower Chi officer, I had a Lower Ch officer.
As soon as the story was on the website, I tweeted it out and also posted it to our Facebook page.
One of my favorite things about the internet is that these kinds of typos are somewhat ephemeral. A couple of keystrokes and they're gone.
Or so it would seem.
The problem is that on Facebook that the original headline on the story is still displayed even after the typo has been corrected.
And of course it got noticed by one of the very first persons who saw the story on Facebook.
There really isn't any good excuse for making these kinds of mistakes.
I can't tell you how many times I've talked to a reader in the last few years who wondered, "Don't you have proofreaders?"
The answer, believe it or not, is no.
They went by the boards a long time ago.
Maybe we should all just slow down.
Me included.
Speed kills.
Take my word for it.
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