Mistake Meltdown at Metro

Welcome back from the holidays. What does the Proofreader have as a gift for you (courtesy of a New York City newspaper)? One edition, three mistakes.

That's what Metro New York daily newspaper printed in its December 23, 2008 paper. At least that's what the Proofreader caught before nearly gouging his eyes out like Oedipus from having to read such excessively sloppy copy on three consecutive pages. There may have been more.

The first mistake, highlighted in the screen shot above, occurred in an opinion column titled "Obama's Cabinet Only Average," on page 17 of the New York edition. Actually, the whole column was something of a mistake as it's poorly written and boasts a depraved lack of inspiration. If you adjust your view to the last word in the sixth line of paragraph three, you will see "hawishness." Clearly, that was an attempt at "hawkishness." The error appeared in all three U.S. Metro editions: Boston, Philadelphia and New York and lives online at the "Metroblog: My View" page.

Another typo appears in the Sports section, on page 18, in an article titled "Welcome To Choke City." Scan down to the article's sixth paragraph which reads, "It's been more woeful that wacky."

Perhaps Metro writers and editors were attempting the word "than" between woeful and wacky. As usual, the mistake is highlighted in the screen shot below, which you can click on to view enlarged. Interestingly, while the mistake on page 17 has not been fixed online, this mistake has been corrected on the Metro Web site.


That brings us to the last, but certainly not the least of the Metro mistakes in the December 23, 2008 edition. On the very next page (18), perhaps the most amusing of the three blunders occurred in a column titled "Media Blitz." Don't bother reading, just skim down to the second section titled "Need to know more about." In the third line, the writer attempted to use the phrase "public relations," but forgot to type a key letter in the word "public." As a result, the phrase reads "pubic relations." Pubic relations! And, one more time: pubic relations. Which reminds the Proofreader, he has some "pubic relations" of his own he must attend to this holiday weekend.


Before he does, though, how'd these mistakes happen? Perhaps Metro copy editors were given an early holiday or maybe they completed their copy editing duties after having chugged spiked egg nog at the Metro holiday party and engaged in inappropriate "pubic relations" with co-workers. Classic typos and mistakes that shouldn't have been made and, while the holidays might be an excuse, they're definitely not a good one.