Ah, dummy copy. So dangerous.
Even more dangerous, though, is a mischievous art desk that doesn’t use generic placeholder text. I once came within a whisker of sending a story about Jamie Oliver to press with a picture caption that read “fat tongue Oliver hugging yet another piglet”. Ta Stu!
Headlines, standfirsts, eyebrows and picture captions: all are in the danger zone. The bigger the font, the blinder you get. It’s huge, so it must be right. Right? But if you’ve left the l out of public or the f out of shift, it’ll be in the headline. Guaranteed. Never trust page furniture.
I’ve half-inched these pics from other people’s websites, because I was looking for a collection to link to and couldn’t find one. To see them in their original homes, just click on them.
And here are some I’ve been sent since publishing this post.
thanks to @DNAtkinson
thanks to @liamkellyldn
A really bad one (the editor resigned over this):
thanks to @grouchotendency
thanks to @Andrew_Taylor
thanks to Melissa
And, going off topic as these things tend to, some different kinds of unfortunate headline.
thanks to higgins
Thanks to @KevGlobal
(The original headline said ‘Can Dec at last match Ant’ and the second said ‘Can Dec finally match Ant’. One page was updated, one wasn’t… AARGH.)
Any more for any more?
Edit: I’ve now been sent so many that this post is getting unwieldy, so I’ve moved it to a Pinterest board. Keep ‘em coming.
Spotted this on the Guardian’s iPhone app:
http://twitgoo.com/4loc53
Comment by Andrew Taylor (@Andrew_Taylor) — January 24, 2012 @ 12:42 pm |
Yes! I do: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OiFNc3Uq-jA/TI8e3XBs_xI/AAAAAAAAB5A/Wgj8KWIk4x4/s1600/glasgow+clanger.jpg
Comment by Melissa — January 24, 2012 @ 12:44 pm |
Nice, although sometimes it would have been better to write ‘headline headghgh’ than, well this for instance… http://ow.ly/i/q7v0
Comment by higgins — January 24, 2012 @ 12:44 pm |
The middle one was blamed on a new Atex system that Johnston Press bullied staff into using WITHOUT ANY TRAINING. I remember this because I was training journalists how to use Atex at Associated Newspapers at the time. Later, Johnston Press hacks went on strike and there were photos of the picket line in The Journalist, showing people with placards reading ‘Atex is rubbish’ and suchlike. I printed these out and stuck them on the Atex project board, cos I’m such an imp. I was going to get badges made up for the Atex trainers but the wearing of badges contravenes Paul Dacre’s Daily Mail floor dress code.
Juxtaposition of lazily written headlines is fun. There was supposedly one in a newspaper in 1948 doing a roundup of the year in which the left-hand page had a feature headed ‘Ghandi cremated’ opposite a sports feature on the right headed ‘Australia keep the ashes’. Sounds too good to be true, though.
Too good but *was* true was the Daily Express Ant and Dec ‘anally’ headline:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2009/sep/01/express-ant-dec-headline-error
Back in the 1990s, when I was production editor on doorstep-thick computer magazines, we hooted with glee at one of Future Publishing’s best-selling games mags that ran a huge cover flash about some kids’ software competition, inviting young children to turn to a specific page inside. When the kids turned to that page, all they found was a large coloured panel, empty but for the enigmatic epigram: ‘Type some shit in here’.
Once I saw that, I realised that it was better to type ‘Hghghghghg’ because it would always get picked up by a last-minute spellcheck, and if someone forgot to follow the last-minute checklist, well, at least it isn’t offensive or defamatory. Not in English, anyway.
Comment by Alistair Dabbs — January 24, 2012 @ 1:43 pm |
The example from the Guardian above dates from last year. As the occasional perpetrator of typos myself, I drew some comfort from seeing the paper repeat the ‘Pullguote over five lines in here’ blunder again on 11 January 2012, as it did last June, when I commented on it here: http://blog.literaryconnections.co.uk/?p=818
Comment by Tom — January 24, 2012 @ 2:49 pm |
Thanks everyone! I’ve added your pics above the line, where appropriate.
Comment by substuff — January 24, 2012 @ 7:59 pm |
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Comment by kosmicklown — January 24, 2012 @ 8:47 pm |
“Heading in here and more in here “.
Bwaaaa!
Comment by Felipe Neumann — January 24, 2012 @ 9:30 pm |
Brilliant.
Comment by Chie Elliott — January 25, 2012 @ 1:24 am |
Having worked in radio before working in journalism, I applied a radio caution to my layout practices: Never curse in a room with a microphone. If you do, it will inevitably be on, and you will have inevitably forgotten to check.
Comment by Jo Hawke — January 25, 2012 @ 11:48 am |
My former MD worked on the Buenos Aires Herald in the 60s. One day the front page featured the pope’s visit to Argentina while the back page led on Muhammad Ali. Of course, the pictures got transposed.
I once saw a copy of Lloyd’s List where the placeholder text appeared seven times on the front page.
In my editor days, I insisted the templates included *@%! in the placeholder copy. You’d have to be blind not to spot that. The exception was bylines, where the default name was Helen Highwater (it was a toss-up between that and Helena Hancart). I believe she’s still adding to her portfolio at that magazine.
Comment by Patrick Neylan (@AngrySubEditor) — January 25, 2012 @ 2:10 pm |
I have not laughed this much in a while. Thank you.
The second paragraph of my comment wej45′v4545 wqxwqxwwe fghfgh.
Comment by Iva — January 27, 2012 @ 10:02 am |
A front-page subdeck on the Cheshunt & Waltham Mercury once reported “residents’ great pubic concern”. Lumme!
Comment by Dave B — February 7, 2012 @ 5:57 pm |
Hehe! It’s as good a thing for them to get concerned about as any other, I guess. Beats parking and rubbish collection.
Comment by substuff — February 7, 2012 @ 7:06 pm |
An old colleague came within an ace of falling foul of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, only saved by a last-minute proof – something the chaps at the Telegraph might think of adopting:
http://bit.ly/boTnAR
Comment by Methuselah — March 7, 2012 @ 2:56 pm |
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