Paper roasts itself for running Pearl Harbor Day editorial on May 1
-- from today's Lufkin Daily News editorial page
Lufkin Daily News publisher Greg Shrader explains what happened:
“A copy editor inexplicably picked up an editorial we had run last December regarding the significance of Pearl Harbor. Her email program had a couple of emails [containing editorials] and she picked the wrong one. I said, ‘Did you read it?’ She said,’Yeah, I wasn’t very good at history.’ I said, ‘No shit.’”
Shrader tells me that he got so many phone calls on Tuesday that he just started picking up the phone when it rang and said before the caller spoke, “Yeah, we ran the wrong editorial.”
* Toasts and Roasts (last item)
* An earlier Lufkin Daily News editorial about Pearl Harbor Day
Congrats to Greg Shrader for handling the mea culpa exactly as it should be handled. No histrionic “firing” of the person who made the mistake nor a superficial, platitudinous apology. A scolding, a good-natured correction, and hours on the phone responding to irate readers one at a time.
“Yeah, I wasn’t very good at history.”
“No shit.”
‘Nuff said.
Well handled – and for a change, I’ll bet he doesn’t lose any readers over it.
Apparently Mr. Shrader–or whoever wrote the correction–isn’t very good at history, either. FDR described Dec. 7, 1941, as “a date that will live in infamy.” Not “a day of infamy.”