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Was that a mispeled word?
By adriana_acosta in To venus and back
August 12, 2010

Did I grab your attention with that misspelled word in the heading? I did that on purpose, to prove a point that is.

The day after the Matagorda Advocate is printed, I sit down and read and check for anything I missed during production day. May it be a misspelled word, a photo was not aligned correctly or a photo border missing. Sometimes we are so busy laying out the paper that eventually, we forget to check something small. It is even a bit harder for me, since I am the one who edits the paper. Not complaining in anyway – love my job! – but it is true.

On Thursday mornings I grab a copy of the paper and go to Main Street Coffee House, grab a cup of coffee and sit in my usual spot. I am always looking for things like misspellings, was the layout ok? Did I miss something? Does it look ok? I do admit that my biggest fear is having misspelled words or the paper is missing pages.

The dream is always the same: It’s Thursday morning and I’m relaxed and relieved the paper was completed. I open the door to my apartment, grab the paper and open it – much to my horror – the front page is missing the centerpiece photo or the heading is missing. Yes, this dream has happened.

My other favorite pre-production nightmare is dreaming it is Thursday and I slept through production day. Which is silly really, people will know I am missing and release the hound dogs in search for me. So really, although that nightmare leaves me a little freaked out, it’s not possible.

When I was working for the Valley Town Crier newspaper in McAllen, I failed to edit one of my stories. It was about a press conference with the Attorney General of Texas, Gregg Abbott. I was so excited he'd made a trip down to the Rio Grande Valley for an important press conference. We've had top political officials visit before like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but I had never met Abbott, so I was looking forward to it.

Fast forward to the day after the paper was printed. I did the usual, grab a cup of coffee, found a comfortable chair and opened the paper, flipped through pages to read the articles. Much to my shock and horror, as I was reading my article, I noticed I had left out the letter "L" in "public." OMG. Was this really happening? Yes, I got calls about it. In the end, I know we are not all perfect, and we are going to make mistakes. Let’s face it, even the bigger newspapers have a few typos. Even my favorite newspaper – The New York Times has had a few misspelled words.

So what did I learn from all of this? EDIT, EDIT, EDIT! That will be one of my biggest learning experiences.

Now that I am an editor of a newspaper, (yes, I love the sound of that) I check and check, again and again because I never want that to happen again.

So what is your biggest ops and what have you learned from it? E-mail me at aacosta@vicad.com and share!