Even journalists make mistakes sometimes By JIM SCHUH of The Gazette In a previous column, I mentioned that when I made an error on the radio, I could usually evade blame by saying the complainer must not have heard me correctly, and quickly fix the mistake for the next broadcast. In radio, the "evidence" disappears into the air as quickly as the speed of light, and there is no way to retrieve it. 'Tain't so in print. Pity the people who put newspaper layouts together. If they goof, there's no easy way to deny it. And you can't correct print errors until the next edition. That may be why newspaper people develop such a macabre sense of humor. In the past year or so, many people have groused about repeated composing errors in the local daily newspaper - from misspellings, to missing story continuations (jumps) on inside pages, to stories that ended in mid-sentence, to printing a mostly blank page. We at the Gazette have had our moments, too. Even though proofreaders check the material that goes into this newspaper at least twice, mistakes do happen. A few are funny, but most are just annoying - to us more than you! You may not know it, but I don't write the headlines that appear over my work. I simply put my columns together in Microsoft Word, hit F7 on my keyboard to check the spelling and grammar, and send them off to the Gazette via e-mail. I leave it for more talented people at our paper to come up with clever headlines that try to entice you to read my stuff. It would be easy to blame computers for the goofs, although in some cases, you'd be right in doing so. But more often than not, it's human error. Last week, this column sported the identical headline as my column from the previous week. The columns themselves were different, but last week's headline made no sense if you tried to compare it with what followed below. The same thing happened once last year - probably during a headline shortage. I lost no sleep over the latest mix-up, and perhaps you never even noticed it. But Editor Gene Kemmeter called me to apologize, and said he was instituting procedures that aim to thwart a repeat situation. Some people complain that headlines mislead or are inaccurate. To those people, I say: You try to write them sometime, and that may change your mind. The headline writer sits in a noisy newsroom with all sorts of distractions, has to read and comprehend the story and then choose just a half-dozen words or so to convey its essence. About a month ago, I wrote a column based on a Gallup Poll that found people hold journalists in relatively low regard - about the same as lawyers and car dealers. The headline on the column expressed that, and it drew the ire of an auto dealer who suspended his advertising in the paper as a result. It bothered me some that the dealer - whom I have known and liked for years - thought I had prepared the "hostile" headline. But it troubled me more that the messenger got blamed for the message - I didn't conduct the Gallup Poll; I just reported its findings. Still, things have a way of working out, and the auto dealer will be back with us. I think it's fair to say almost all journalists do their best to be fair and accurate. When we err, though - sometimes as a result of our incompetence with today's technology - it seems the mistakes sit there in plain view, screaming for attention. To us, even our little typos way down near the end of a story look like banner headlines, and make us want to emulate an ostrich. In days to come, we promise to try harder to avoid mistakes, but also ask you to be understanding when we fail. You can still rib us if you wish. A little humor is a wonderful salve. * * * What will your stocks do in the days ahead? If you're among those who believe the results of Sunday's Super Bowl predict how the market will act over the next year, you'll certainly be pulling for the New York Giants if you want your portfolio to rise in value. As it happens, in almost every year that the pre-merger National Football League team wins the Super Bowl, stocks go up. (Forget about what happened the last three years - since the merger, this maxim has been right 82 percent of the time.) Of course it doesn't make any sense. Neither do some of the Wall Street analysts who have a daily answer for every twist and turn the market takes. But wait a minute. The American Football Conference champions - the Baltimore Ravens - used to be the Cleveland Browns, and before the leagues merged, the Browns were an NFL team. So that means a Ravens victory Sunday also would cause stock to rise this year. Looks like we can't lose either way! You may reach Jim Schuh at The Gazette, or by e-mail at jpschuh@excite.com.