Re: Advertiser boo-boo
What, are you kidding? I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often! For local stories, it's either a simple lack of communication, or someone taking a different angle on the same story and not realizing that someone else is working on an extremely similar story. This shouldn't happen (with local stories, I mean), but it can if people just aren't talking to each other enough. Sometimes we get tunnel vision. Or it's a simple misunderstanding. "I thought I was supposed to use that story!" "No, I said I was going to use it!"
Here's how it happens with non-local stories:
Similar stories, different slugs, moving on different wires. Or even ... SAME story, moving on different wires. Let's say I'm a wire editor (national desk). I don't look at the Biz wire, EVER. I grab the story on the National wire, unaware that it's moving on another wire because 1. I'm in a hurry and don't notice the "also moving on business wire" tag, or 2. it's not the exact same story as on the biz wire, it's just similar, so there is no notation -- the stores came from different sources (AP and NYT, perhaps).
Someone else takes the story that moved on the Biz wire. We're on deadline, we don't have time to run around the newsroom broadcasting every story we're running. We find out the next day when we get an outraged phone call from a reader who, nine times out of 10, blames our mistake on our liberal slant, our taking orders from the Bush administration or our pro- or anti-business/military/Hawaiian/nuke/animal rights position. Depending on the reader.
Also ... yeah, what Lavagal said.
Originally posted by LikaNui
Here's how it happens with non-local stories:
Similar stories, different slugs, moving on different wires. Or even ... SAME story, moving on different wires. Let's say I'm a wire editor (national desk). I don't look at the Biz wire, EVER. I grab the story on the National wire, unaware that it's moving on another wire because 1. I'm in a hurry and don't notice the "also moving on business wire" tag, or 2. it's not the exact same story as on the biz wire, it's just similar, so there is no notation -- the stores came from different sources (AP and NYT, perhaps).
Someone else takes the story that moved on the Biz wire. We're on deadline, we don't have time to run around the newsroom broadcasting every story we're running. We find out the next day when we get an outraged phone call from a reader who, nine times out of 10, blames our mistake on our liberal slant, our taking orders from the Bush administration or our pro- or anti-business/military/Hawaiian/nuke/animal rights position. Depending on the reader.
Also ... yeah, what Lavagal said.
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