# Is the clumsy typo on the New York Times frontpage indicative of deeper problems or no big deal?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 21, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966 "2014-10-21T00:36:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/1 "2014-10-21T00:36:18Z")
Story here
[New York Times Makes Yet Another Front Page Blunder](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/20/new-york-times-ebola-typo-mistake-error-front-page-cover_n_6014112.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Last week, we reported that The New York Times had published a story on its front page that began mid-sentence and failed to include a byline or subheading.
>
> Today, the Times has committed yet another huge front page error with a glaring typo in the lead Ebola story.
>
> Can you see it?
It’s a pretty silly error and in other venues would be no big deal but it’s being treated as a BFD in this story. Is this level of reaction warranted?
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### Author:  [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/2 "2014-10-21T01:28:52Z")
It’s the Huffington Post. Now which news outlet do you trust more?
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### Author:  [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/3 "2014-10-21T01:49:12Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Last week, we reported that The New York Times had published a story on its front page that began mid-sentence and failed to include a byline or subheading.
ly Ballou strikes again!
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/4 "2014-10-21T02:18:29Z")
The NYT is supposed to be _The Standard_, so when they have a typo/misspelling in bold letters on the front page, it’s a bit of an issue.
It’s the bane of word processor spell checkers; words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. That means no red squiggly underline.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/5 "2014-10-21T14:50:30Z")
I agree with Ranger Jeff, but I would think the problem is not indicative of the NYT so much as news (not just papers) in general. No one wants to pay for quality editors. Editors don’t effect\* the bottom line - when they do their job, no one notices.
Maybe I’m just an old man ranting, but it could be a symptom of kids that grew up in the “everyone gets a trophy day” education system. They were never challenged, so when they get to actual jobs, they don’t care about quality. They never had to. They couldn’t of \* done a good job it they wanted to.
\*see, I need an editor.
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### Author:  [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/6 "2014-10-21T15:21:49Z")
Those kinds of errors are the stuff of editors’ nightmares.
* * *
My team once wrote up a Medicare publication for public health clinics. The front page headline was, cleverly, “Attention Public Health Clinics!” with a subhead of “New Billing Guidelines”.
Well, we wrote it up. Six people looked at the final layout. Then three members of management gave it their blessing.
And just after everything had been sent to the Post Office, someone noticed that the “l” was missing from “Public”. It’s an important letter in that word.
* * *
WRT the NYT, I assume most people wouldn’t even see the error; your brain supplies the missing letter. I don’t think it’s the end of the world, just internet outrage.
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### Author:  [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/7 "2014-10-21T15:57:00Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#):
>
> WRT the NYT, I assume most people wouldn’t even see the error; your brain supplies the missing letter. I don’t think it’s the end of the world, just internet outrage.
I completely disagree. I’m not “outraged” by any means, but this jumps right off the page. There’s no excuse for this not being caught.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/8 "2014-10-21T16:06:05Z")
There is it is - oy vey. Yeah, that should have been caught. I agree that major publications like The New York Times do have a higher standard than your average internet message board post.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/9 "2014-10-21T16:23:29Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> I agree with Ranger Jeff, but I would think the problem is not indicative of the NYT so much as news (not just papers) in general. No one wants to pay for quality editors.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but it doesn’t take a quality editor to spot that typo. Someone at the NYT missed [Al Yankovic’s latest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_Crimes).
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/10 "2014-10-21T16:42:37Z")
I think the typo is simply indicative of the way things are at all newspapers: dwindling money to spend on staff, including editors and copycheckers. Not so many years ago, it was rare to find a typographical error in _The Rocky Mountain News_ and _The Denver Post_, my local papers. Now, the former is long gone and it’s rare to _not_ find a typo in the _Post_, even though it’s got a 75% smaller page count in which to commit them.
It’s rare in\* The New York Times \*because it’s got a bigger, more experienced staff than most local dailies (although it’s smaller than it once was), but even The Grey Lady isn’t immune.
My bigger worry, given the way people communicate now, is how many people in the coming years are going to actually care about typos.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/11 "2014-10-21T16:47:01Z")
> [@Flywheel](#):
>
> ly Ballou strikes again!
😃
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/12 "2014-10-21T16:59:25Z")
The second error is not necessarily indicative of anything on its own. Even the NYT occasionally makes mistakes. The first one, though, there’s no conceivable way that any editor or proofreader could have missed that… which indicates that it wasn’t proofread at all. And that is indicative of deeper problems.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/13 "2014-10-21T19:13:28Z")
> [@Gordon\_Urquhart](#):
>
> \
> My bigger worry, given the way people communicate now, is how many people in the coming years are going to actually care about typos.
You see it all the time on the Dope - new posters coming in with terrible grammar, spelling and writing skills, and when they’re called on it, their response is usually something like, “I don’t care - you understood what I meant” (except much more poorly written). The idea that accuracy is critical in writing is definitely getting lost along the way.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/14 "2014-10-21T20:04:57Z")
I’ve grown used to lesser papers having errors that would have resulted in attrition on the editorial floor in eras past - some, like the Hartford Courant, aren’t even edited locally but in a boiler room in Chicago, which means that localisms like street names and place spellings are often screwed up.
But headline and front page errors in the NYT… this is bad. Very bad.
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### Author:  [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/15 "2014-10-21T21:42:31Z")
Meh. Yes it’s wrong, and yes it should have been caught. But geez, do you realize how many headlines the NYT cranks out in any given year? Mistakes happen. Something is going to slip through every now and then. If this happened a lot it would be noteworthy. A single incident? Non-story. Move along.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/16 "2014-10-21T22:43:32Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> Maybe I’m just an old man ranting, but it could be a symptom of kids that grew up in the “everyone gets a trophy day” education system. They were never challenged, so when they get to actual jobs, they don’t care about quality. They never had to. They couldn’t of \* done a good job it they wanted to.
The practice of everyone getting a Participation Trophy dates back to the early 80s at the very latest. They may even be older than that. So these “kids” could be 45 years old. Damn kids!
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/17 "2014-10-21T22:52:39Z")
It’s not a typo: they’re talking about were-Ebola, which is where you turn into the Ebola virus during a full moon.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2014, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/18 "2014-10-22T02:21:23Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> It’s not a typo: they’re talking about were-Ebola, which is where you turn into the Ebola virus during a full moon.
Don’t tell my Facebook friends. They’ll believe it.
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### Author:  [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2014, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/19 "2014-10-22T04:43:49Z")
And thus the world ends, not with a bang, but with a wimper.
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### Author:  [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2014, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-clumsy-typo-on-the-new-york-times-frontpage-indicative-of-deeper-problems-or-no-big-deal/701966/20 "2014-10-22T05:00:03Z")
Ever since people began to rely on spell checkers, no one is willing to pay the expense of proof readers any more. The result is that certain kind of errors will not be detected providing they are spelled correctly. Words like: your, you’re, there, their, two, too, to, etc. will always pass the spell check even if they are errors.
Grammar checkers remain less than perfect and so the editors of big newspapers are left with a problem. The sad thing is that most big newspapers realize they are slowly but surely being squeezed out of business and so this problem is not even very important to them compared to what they will do in future to earn a living.
It’s not really important to me either. Is it important to you?
I ask because the issue is one of cost versus benefit. Do you think it’s worth the cost to eliminate these rather trivial errors? Almost no one who uses the Internet seems to think that. In fact, on most Internet forums (like this one), when people complain about grammar and spelling errors, most other people tell them to just stop complaining and find something more important to discuss.
Seems sad but true to me. I would call it an unfortunate sign of the times.
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