Copy Editing Mistake of 2011: 'Fuck' Randomly Inserted in South Carolina Newspaper

• Hey, according to another blog reporting this, this actually got someone who hasn't picked up a physical newspaper in years to get a copy. So maybe there's method to the madness. Another site points out that this is apparently a free newspaper, so everyone in Greenville got a free ... uh, yeah...

• Hammond87 is mostly correct. The error did occur on the Louisville copy desk, not in Greenville. The Greenville "copy desk," such as it is, is down to one-two people who pretty much deal only with section fronts. It's Gannett's fault for dictating layoffs that have made all their papers vulnerable to this type of gaffe; but it's the local publisher's and executive editor's responsibility for going along with Gannett's mandates. They have some discretion in where the cuts fall, and could have made cuts to protect editorial quality. But that hasn't been the tactic of the local leadership.  I don't believe in the Nuremburg Defense when it comes to the Fourth Estate. "Just following orders" doesn't cut it when you have a Constitutionally protected public trust.

• The Greenville News doesn't even have copy editors any more... it's  not the fault of the Greenville News employees it's Gannett's fault...the  Gannett company- owner of the Greenville news, centralized the editing jobs in Louisville... so Greenville did nothing wrong!

• The paper should apologies language like this doesn;t belong in the public especially something that reaches so many people that don;t talk this way.

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