I sympathize with how hard it must be to put out a daily newspaper — heck, even a weekly. I try to do this blog every day and you see how well that goes — because there’s always a paying client I’ve got to tend to (which is lucky on one hand, hell, several hands, but leaves little time for fun stuff like blogging!).
But the local papers — and I know times are tough — are stinting on the areas where it matters most. Nearly every week someone mentions something in the Sarasota Herald Tribune — a misspelling, the wrong word used, etc. One week the paper referred to a women whose husband had passed away as a widower. Um, hello????? And they did it more than once in the same piece.
Now in today’s paper, this: 
they don’t even take out their own notes on what kind of text they want to include in their headers. See the lines in the subheading: “Something: Followed by three lines of sumgraf kind of copy down here.” Clearly a note from the writer or the editor reminding someone to create “something” — a heading, followed by some text (copy).
I know it’s an honest mistake — but where are the proofers? I heard they don’t use any anymore. Because nearly no newspapers are using them, but isn’t that the last line of defense???? And one of the most important ones?
Then Creative Loafing this week on its cover — its cover, folks — has the name of a political candidate misspelled. It’s FEEHAN not Freehan! 
I know they’re busier than one-armed paper hangers over there, but here’s the question:
When things are so tight and resources are so limited and people’s time and minds are so stretched thin that they miss three major lines of text on the front page of the business section or misspell something on the cover of the entire publication — what is that saying about what newspapers are doing to themselves? I know print media is suffering major slings and arrows right now, but do they have to throw them — with their own hands — at their own publications?
I know people say — they warn me all the time — that I shouldn’t nip at the hands that (occasionally) feed me (and my cats!), but somebody’s got to talk about this stuff.
This kind of thing might seem “small” — and these two or three instances are — but really, if we saw this kind of stuff happening in the corporate world or in the political world, heads would role for the people who make such, well, ultimately sloppy mistakes — even if they’re not necessarily the result of sloppiness but more of just plain overworkedness (and yes I know that’s not a word!).
Memo to both papers — I’m available as a proofreader! (and feverishly hoping there are no typos in this blog ’cause I’m running late for an appointment, gotta go, oh, wait that’s a typo!)……………………..