Pobody's nerfect

Believe it or not, I really do know how to spell "hospital."

Of course, if you read Thursday's Courier News, you might think otherwise. After all, that's where you would find — on Page 1, mind you ... in large, bold type, no less — the word "hosptial" where the word "hospital" should have been.

Sigh.

I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person. But when you make mistakes like that, it really doesn't help the cause.

The truth of the matter is the story was a last-minute addition to Page 1. (Staff writer Donna Loyd Hilton did a great job putting the story together in the limited time available.) I guess I got in a hurry. Several different people looked over the page before it went to press, but nobody caught the gaffe until the papers were on the street.

Really, there's no excuse. It was a stupid mistake, an oversight, and I apologize.

Thankfully, we were spared the wave of phone calls from helpful readers eager to provide valuable spelling tips. I guess the actual news about the hosptial — er, hospital — not to mention the latest Carol White fracas, was enough to keep folks distracted.

But that wasn't the case on July 29 when this newspaper committed one of the most egregious errors in journalism history when we (gulp) misidentified a crop.

In this case, it was cotton, mistakenly referred to as soybeans in a caption under a photo. I would like to take this time to personally thank the 11 readers out there who did NOT call us to let us know about this faux pas.

The one thing I learned after Cottongate is that, at least in this part of the country, there's not too many mistakes that will raise the ire of readers more than misidentifying a crop. Seriously — some of the folks I spoke with were downright indignant when they called.

I never realized the pride some folks take in their ability to identify crops. And I admit I'm pretty bad with it. Sure, having grown up in Iowa, I know a thing or two about spotting a corn field. But cotton and soybeans — at least until the bolls appear — always trip me up. I'm told the difference is in the blooms. (Although, for the record, you can Google "soybean blooms" and find some flowers that look similar to cotton blooms — at least similar enough to confuse a newspaper editor.)

Seriously, we hate making mistakes in the newspaper, and we strive every day to keep them out. But we're not perfect, and it's inevitable that an error or two will creep into the newspaper on a fairly consistent basis — sometimes, they'll even make their way into giant headlines or prominent captions on Page 1.

The thing I hope folks remember is that everyone, in every occupation, makes mistakes, whether it's teachers or factory workers or salesmen. Most of the time, nobody knows. The difference is that with the newspaper business, when we make a mistake, we print off 6,000 copies, and give one to everybody in town.

It can be embarrassing, to be sure. But at least a typo here and there generally doesn't hurt anyone. I would hate to see anyone sent to the hosptial over something that was printed in the newspaper.