Nobody likes making a fuck up, especially when everybody in the world can instantly see your error, but they still happen.
In this climate of overworked staff and a critical lack of time in the newsroom, silly typos on instant online news stories are unavoidable, even if every digital journo fucking hates making them. Nobody likes fucking up at the best of times, and especially not when you've got thousands of people watching and judging everything you do.
So despite the best of efforts, they will happen. They do, of course, get immediately fixed when spotted, but it's still a little shocking and disconcerting to see how much it drives some readers into a total fucking rage.
Accepting that human beings aren't fucking robots is part of being a grown up. You can expect more, you can even expect total perfection all the time, but it shouldn't be a crushing disappointment when you don't get it. Fucking toddlers manage to work that shit out.
The people running the big online news sites in this country hate making mistakes as much as any other person, and are only too eager to fix their fuck ups. If they're fast enough, they'll spot them first – and they usually do, because they're looking at their sites more than any other human being. If they fix it before anybody notices, it didn't happen, and we can all move on and just hope no smartarse shithead took a screenshot.
But over-worked and over-stressed editorial staff don't need a fucking lecture on the downfall of media standards every time they spell police as polcie. They welcome short, precise notice that something isn't right, and this will usually result in a 'shit yeah, you're right', a thank-you and a swift correction.
If, however, you feel the need to express your displeasure in the medium of indignant profanity, telling people you've never met that they should all be fired and burn in hell because this is the downfall of all journalism and it wasn't like it in your day - well, then you're not going to get far.
Because that kind of missive is even way less effective. You might think you're blasting a big, sprawling organisation, but you're also pissing on an actual person, and you can't blame them if their reaction is a “fuck you, buddy, I'll get around to fixing it later”. If it's not huge and noticeable - and most of the errors that attract this kind of vitriol are definitely not - it can fuckin' wait.
Bigger issues of overall balance and bias are a different matter altogether, but when tiny mistakes are made that are easily fixable, everybody needs to calm the farm. They'll sort it out, if you don't be a dick about it.
Nobody really likes being told they've fucked up, but a bit of perspective – and some common goddamn courtesy – can go a long way.
- Katherine Grant
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