Missing: Fatals Recap

Fatals included ...

PROBLEM: When we meant to say deadbeat dads, we said deadbeat dates. That misspelling creates a change in meaning, and a change in meaning is a fatal.

SOLUTION: Check your work word-by-word with your own eyes after we finish writing to make sure what we wrote is correct and what you intended to write. And don't simply rely on spell check; spell check wouldn't have helped here because our misspelling of exclaimed created a correctly-spelled explained, which was an unintended word. Spell check is a supplement to, but not a substitute for, checking our stories line-by-line, item-by-item, quote-by-quote and word-by-word.

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PROBLEM: We spelled the town's name as East Lasing when in fact it's East Lansing, with two N's.

SOLUTION: Same as above.

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Something to note: we're seeing the exact same mistakes reappear. Rarely is it a huge error; it's almost always something small that is a simple case of failing to properly proof a story.

Early on in this class, I talked about how doing all the little routine things in journalism -- like thoroughly checking your work to make sure what you wrote was what you intended to write, and that it was accurate as compared to your notes and the facts -- was something that you could never take for granted. It's not.

And it has nothing to do with talent, just vigilance. In the same way American can have the best army in the world, it doesn't really matter if the one night the army takes the night off, Canada decides to invade us.

Or if we're trying to stay in shape, and instead of running our miles every day we start to cut corners and slack here and there. Eventually, the pounds will start showing.
 
The fact is, you could be the world's best journalist, and you still have to do all the little and annoying things -- like checking routine facts -- if you want to stay ahead of making mistakes. Because when you're processing thousands of words a day in a professional environment and on deadline, a mistake is always waiting to catch you at a lax moment and bite your ass.
 
It's why The New York Times has the best journalists in the world, yet they still have a copy desk.
 
So there's no big thing to learn from the fatals, other than if we want to do things the right way, we have to do things the right way completely and each and every time.
 
This job isn't about writing. It's about getting it right. We have to start making sure we're following all the steps, every time. No more short cuts. No more assumptions.
 
Each and every one of you is capable of doing this, and doing it well. But we need to do all the things we're supposed to do for that to happen.