Sweat the Small Stuff
In 1997, a psychotherapist named Richard Carlson published a book called “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff.” The book hung around on best-seller lists for two years and was translated into 30 or so languages. The message popped up on lapel pins, hoodies, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and of course, posters and signs in dentist offices and beach cottages that rent by the week.
It’s a salutary message when you think of how inordinately irritated we can get by the delays, spills and glitches that can turn a sweet day sour. But it’s all wrong for journalism, where every mistake we make undermines not just our own credibility, nor even the credibility of the organization we work for, but that of our entire profession.
Let one reporter get caught straying into the anything-can-happen world of fiction — not small stuff at all — and the leap is made: They all do that. Think of the damage wrought by the Jayson Blair affair. If a New York Times reporter is making shit up, what must be happening at lesser papers?
But even seemingly trivial errors can be corrosive. Misspell the name of the baby in a birth announcement or the name of a presidential candidate during an election year (I got a smattering of Hilarys from students in 2016), or the name of a town in your coverage area — we have a Philipsburg in my county — or is it Phillipsburg? — and you will be mocked, scorned and possibly canceled, both in the subscription sense and the social media sense.
I like to tell my students of the time my newspaper ran a what’s closed/what’s open box on a holiday. The reporter assigned to this task was supposed to update the box that ran on the previous holiday. Alas, we printed the wrong box, the one that told readers there would be no trash collection that day. Trash collection occurred as usual.
This may seem like small potatoes, I tell the class. But say you have one trash bin. Your household waste fills it every week. Trash Day arrives and, per your local newspaper, you don’t roll your bin out to the curb. The garbage truck comes, goes and won’t return for another week. Now you have another seven days’ worth of trash and no place to put it.
I took a call from an irate reader who had a solution: “How about we dump our trash in your parking lot?” he said.
Then there’s the Grammar Police, of which I consider myself a member. Say you write, “Walking into the kitchen, the refrigerator is on the right.” Oho, say the grammarians, an ambulatory ice box, eh?
Commas? Some are optional, others essential. Write After leaving Indiana Jones went to Boise State and readers might momentarily wonder, what’s this about Indiana Jones? Then, ah, right, this Jones person went from Indiana to Idaho.
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Even hyphens matter. The difference between a blue striped shirt and a blue-striped shirt? One’s a blue shirt with stripes of an indeterminate color. One’s a shirt of indeterminate color with blue stripes.
How about a white bearded man vs. a white-bearded man? One’s a white dude with a beard, the other is Santa Claus.
And so on.
Finally, there are the malaprops, some a result of spellcheck trying and failing to correct a misspelled word, others the product of the writer’s confusion. A few favorites, from students and from newspapers that shall remain nameless:
· An elderly woman held off two buglers after they attempted to steal her purse in Skyway Plaza yesterday.
· Now, we can give hundreds of students the guidance and support they need for a lifetime of dynamic Jewish leadership and impact,” said the rabies wife.
· The national anthem was not audible, nor were the stadium staff, who were trying their best to chorale the students.
· Returning from a yearlong suspension for performance enchanting drugs, second baseman Robinson Cano added two hits.
· He knew right from the gecko…
Gems — as long as it’s not your byline that’s on the story. Or, if you’re an editor, as long as it’s not your newspaper’s name at the top of the front page.
To err is human, of course. But if we impress upon young writers that seemingly small errors are a big problem, perhaps they’ll make fewer of them.
