Headline mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately for journalists, our mistakes are quite public, and sometimes they are in 72 point font.

Yes, the journalism devils seem to strike most often in headlines. For some reason, errors can be the most hard to catch for journalists when they are in huge font. But once the reader sees the print copy, many times the errors are quite glaring.

Take this gem from the English FAIL Blog for example:

Though this headline is quite incriminating, I do not think the people at the paper are illiterate. (I believe that, even if it's just because the article says that Mississippi's literacy program is working.) In fact, the journalists are probably quite the opposite. As I said, the journalism devils like to play tricks on unsuspecting copy editors. If they see any moment of weakness, they will strike.

And strike they do! As found on the Professor Cornbread Web site, here are some other great headline mistakes:

Queen Mary is having bottom scraped.
Panda mating fails, veterinarian takes over.
NJ judge to rule on nude beach.

Enraged cow injures farmer with ax.
Two Soviet ships collide, one dies.
Two sisters reunite after eighteen years at checkout counter.

Never withhold herpes from loved one.

Cold wave linked to temperatures.
Something went wrong in jet crash, experts say.

Ads that didn't translate so well:

“Bite the wax tadpole.” Coca-Cola as originally translated into Chinese.
“Pepsi bring your ancestors back from the grave.” Pepsi ad slogan ‘Pepsi Comes Alive’ as originally translated into Chinese.

Obviously these previous examples underscore the importance of careful editing. Editors must scrutinize headlines from every possible angle, in addition to making sure they are grammatically correct and accurate.

But as I've said, horrible headlines will still slip through. (I plan to share one of my most painful headline moments in a future monologue.) So in the end, journalists must have good humor. I can imagine the people who have written some of the above headlines find their mistakes just hilarious nowadays. And while they probably experienced physical pain when they discovered their bad headline, I also like to believe that they learned their lesson and moved on to write smashing (or even more funny) headlines.