Two Bits – 21 November 2014

Newspapers can have their lighter moments.

The line of copy bearing the name of the reporter who wrote an article is called a ‘byline’.

While our style is simply to state the name of the reporter, some newspapers say ‘By Joe Bloggs’ etc, hence the name.

Our publishing system has a default ‘byline’ of ‘Vlad the Impaler’ – why, I don’t know, probably just the quirky choice of the designer of the system.

There actually was a real Vlad, a Romanian nobleman who was the inspiration for Dracula.

Last week I wrote a story about the Zimbali Rotary club and some cheques it had handed out, then pushed the button to send it to the appropriate page in the makeup process, and sent it off to the printer without another thought.

Imagine the sniggers when the newspaper came back on Wednesday, with the byline ‘Vlad the Impaler’ above the story.

Most people probably won’t have paid it much notice, but it’s the sort of mistake that literally leaps off the page when you’re used to proofing for errors.

I didn’t mind really, I quite fancy the name.

I once knew a Russian girl who called me ‘Boris’ in a low husky voice that sent shivers all over, so imagine what she could have done with ‘Vladivich’!

Over the years there have been some priceless newspaper bloopers.

In the rush to get papers out, editors are so concerned with making sure a news headline ‘fits’ in the allotted space that they sometimes don’t see the woods for the trees; they forget to stand back and look at the sense of a headline.

Consider this one from an unnamed American paper.

The whole world has a lot of trouble spelling Mississippi (I still have to recite the catchphrase from Std 3: Mrs Em Mrs Eye, Mrs Ess Ess Eye, Mrs Eye Ess Ess, Mrs Pee Pee Eye) so maybe it’s okay for the Americans to slip up occasionally.