April 7, 2009

BYU's Daily Universe and the 12 Apostates

It was a pretty unfortunate typo, that's for certain. On the other hand, in my news experience mistakes are more likely to be made in photo captions than elsewhere. I think in retrospect this will be seen as an uninentional (and pretty funny) little gaffe. To the folks at the Daily Universe: don't lose too much sleep over it; the bretheren will likely laugh this one off.

8 comments:

Ardis Parshall said...

They'd BETTER laugh it off -- the poor kids must be in tears.

I appreciated the coverage in the Salt Lake Tribune today, which noted a recent Trib headline gaffe in calling the president of the church "Gordon Monson." Rather than heaping the mockery on the BYU editors, as it would have been so easy to do, they took a collegial approach. Good for them, for once!

BHodges said...

Once in a while if we were at the paper late we would put a joke in a caption and see if the copy editors caught it. It would be kinda funny if that was the case here, but it seems as likely this was a spell check issue as they are saying.

And yes, nice work by the Trib.

rameumptom said...

Wow, does this mean we're going to have to sustain a whole new set of 12 apostles next conference????

cinepro said...

Proof-reading is a service my business offers, and it is astounding the kind of mistakes that can make it through a production process.

I can only imagine how awful the poor student must feel to have called the 12 Apostles "apostates" in 18k+ newspapers. Talk about something they'll never live down! But if there is even a hint of doubt about the veracity of their testimony, they're toast.

Jeremy said...

Before reading the BYU article explaining the spell-checker mishap, I thought it must have either been a freudian slip or possibly a disgruntled employee. Apparently, the spell-checker suggested the word "apostate" as the correct spelling of the misspelled "apostle," and the editor mistakenly accepted the change. Still, even under pressure, you'd think the word "apostate" would raise some red flags upon review - especially at BYU.

BHodges said...

You'd be surprised what can slip past editors.

Anonymous said...

No, it was a Freudian slip... pretty telling, hahaha! Awesome!

BHodges said...

Visitors should use a name or a consistent pseudonym rather than "anonymous." pretty telling, hahaha! Awesome!

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