Way Too Funny

Filak-ism: You will screw up. You are not on a lunchbox.

Sam-Kinison
Who wouldn’t want this face on their third-grade lunchbox?

 

Filak-ism: A random observation, borrowed idea from a movie/song/TV show/book, odd concept or weird phrase that has been warped in the mind of Dr. Vince Filak for broader application within journalism situations.

The late shock-rock comedian Sam Kinison once had the misfortune of ticking off a major comedy figure on a slow news day. Kinison was slated to be the main guest on the “Joan Rivers Show,” but managed to blow it off, leaving Rivers with about 20 minutes of essentially dead air and shadow-puppet tricks. News stations picked this up and it became a pretty big, albeit overblown, deal.

In his posthumously released album, “Live From Hell,” Kinison reflected on the error, leaving me with one of my favorite Filak-isms. “I can (expletive) up. I’m not on a lunch box.” The point being that unlike the kiddie characters and perfect heroes who were marketed on lunchboxes through his youth, Kinison was never going to be perfect.

As a journalist, neither will you.

Trying to be perfect at journalism is your goal, but to quote the famous coach Vince Lombardi, you will never catch perfection. That said, in its pursuit, you will catch excellence and that’s usually good enough. Also during its pursuit, you are going to screw up in some pretty spectacular ways. We already detailed the “filthiest” screw up in all of sports journalism here (as well as one of mine that follows me to this day), but I asked the Hivemind folks for some of the biggest screw-ups they made and if they learned anything from them. Here are some of the things that went wrong:

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Getting a name wrong can feel like the worst thing in the world, especially after you realize, it’s impossible to make up for it. The most recent error was from an award-winning sports journalist, who managed to confuse an NFL Hall of Fame Green Bay Packer with a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer:

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The reason? The writer said he was in the middle of several stories when he caught the Kramer story and had to get it done immediately. When Jerry Kramer started listing off all the people who mattered to him, he mentioned both legendary Packers Jim Ringo and Bart Starr. In his notes, the writer wrote last names, leading to the Ringo Starr moment:

Now, after the initial shock and ensuing, hysterical laugh (trust me, I laughed about 10 minutes, full on tears and everything), a very reasonable question is how does someone write Ringo Starr instead of Jim Ringo? I’m not an idiot. I know who Jim freaking Ringo is. Seems like an impossible error to make, right?

Well, I don’t remember writing “Ringo Starr.” At the point I wrote it, I was typing to fast — between two word docs, remember — to grasp everything I was doing. (This is fairly normal for sports writers; usually we get away with it.) But I do remember Kramer going down the list of teammates he appreciated. “Fuzzy… Forrest… Ringo… Starr…” BAM!

Another longtime journalist had a similar switcharoo moment, confusing the man who played Ben Hur and Moses with one of the “Dirty Dozen:”

I once wrote Charles Bronson when I meant Charlton Heston while making a Soylent Green reference. Forgot to fix it on the page and it made it to print. The complaint letters were well deserved.

We both agreed “The Ten Commandments” would have been different if his mix-up had played out in real life:

It can be even worse if the person is local, in that I doubt Charles Bronson or Charlton Heston even read about the mix up. One writer talked about her experience highlighting the opening of a local business:

One that always sticks with me is when I used the wrong first name of a gentleman who had just opened up a restaurant with his wife. My editor told me that now he couldn’t frame and hang that article highlighting his accomplishment because of my error. He didn’t scream at me because he didn’t have to. I felt terrible when he put my screw-up into those terms.


I DIDN’T MEAN FOR THAT TO GO PUBLIC:
Whenever a student in the newsroom can’t figure out a headline and writes, “SCREW IT, I’LL PICK A HEADLINE LATER” (or in one case, just the F-bomb over and over again) in that space, I get hives. The student always says, “I’m not going to run that,” but that’s not always your choice. In text-based journalism, we always say you should never write something you wouldn’t want your grandmother to read, even if it’s just as a joke. In broadcast, the rule is to treat every microphone like it’s broadcasting or “hot,” something that is easier said than done. A radio journalist who also worked in PR shared this:

Didn’t realize my mic was hot and said “what the fuck?”

A photojournalist noted that the “I didn’t mean for that to go public” situation isn’t only for the word folks, as only a lucky save by the press operators kept this from getting ugly (or uglier):

This was my photo editor’s goof up. He was showing off to a cute intern one day when he Photoshopped an eye on the middle of a guy’s forehead. He apparently thought he had removed it, but the pressmen discovered it several hundred copies into the first run. They had to re-web the press–He was not fired but was skating on thin ice for a while…

DEATH BECOMES YOU (MAYBE):
Life and death issues are no joking matter. Making an error about someone being alive or dead can affect you as a writer for a really, really long time. (Trust me on that one.) One journalism instructor who worked in the field noted that his assumption about a source seemed to create a life-and-death situation:

I gave a guy cancer in a story (he never had cancer-just advocated for patients with it. Learned that just because you THINK you know someone’s story- double check it. And turn down interviews so close to deadline.

A longtime copy editor managed to “resurrect” a source after catching an error from one of the writers on her publication’s staff:

(I) once brought a man back from the dead: The writer was convinced that saying “the late mayor” was the same thing as “the former mayor.” I always tell my interns that fact-checking and careful editing can save lives.

JUST… OW…
Perhaps one of the most gifted and socially aware journalists and professors I have ever known got hit with perhaps one of the most unfortunate typos ever. Of all the people this could have happened to, it was so unfair this one happened to her, given her genuine understanding of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and other sensitive issues:

I wrote a story about kids in a summer camp learning about the Buffalo Soldiers (African-American soldiers). Somehow a production error changed the word “counselor” to “coounselor” only in some editions. It was not in the edition I got at home or in the office. Imagine my surprise when a woman called me the next morning and started screaming at me that I was a racist and did I think that was funny? I didn’t know what had happened and had to apologize profusely.

The takeaway here is that nobody in journalism is perfect and we all have our moments of “Oh… God… Why?” When it came to the “Ringo Starr” screw up, the writer told me he laughed hysterically until he cried because there was nothing else he could do. Others said they grimaced and moved on. Some said it informs how they teach or what they do to help students avoid their screw ups.

For me, I go all the way back to the guy who gave my high school graduation’s valedictory address. The guy’s name was Willie Nelson (Really. He went by Willie.) and he told the story about how he once got annoyed by his sister and smacked her in the face with a baseball bat. When he was sent to his room as a punishment, his grandfather came and told him some invaluable advice:

“Boy, I hope you learned something today,” he said. “Everybody makes mistakes. It’s the stupid ones you gotta learn to avoid making twice.”

 

 

 

Four things to know to keep your first media writing class from sucking

With the close of the Labor Day weekend, it’s a safe bet that most students reading this will be starting the fall semester or have just started it (apologies to those of you who are on trimesters or who just have a ridiculously early start date). When we start this week, I know I’ll be face to face with another fresh crop of students experiencing their first media writing class and I can already smell the anxiety.

For those of you students in a similar boat, in that you’ll be taking your first media writing or reporting class, here are four things to know from the start so that your experience will be less painful:

Your work will suck for a while: One of the most difficult things about going into media writing is how frustrating it can be for people who have always been good writers. People who struggled to write? They tend to have an easier time with it, even though that sounds counter-intuitive.

Let’s call the rationale behind this the “Michael Jordan Plays Baseball” Theory. In 1993, Michael Jordan had cemented his place as the best basketball player in the world. He had just led the Bulls to a “three-peat” as NBA champions and he won the MVP award in each of those finals. In October of that year, he retired from basketball and decided to try playing baseball. He’s a super star athlete, he’s in his prime and he never stunk at anything, so this shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Wrong.

Jordan played for Double-A Birmingham Barons and to quote Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, “He couldn’t hit a curve ball with an ironing board.” Eventually, he got his first hit, his first run batted in and so forth. Even though he only hit .202 for the season, his manager (Terry Francona) said that he improved and could have been a major leaguer if he had committed to it. Instead, Jordan went back to basketball, much to the chagrin of everyone who wasn’t a Bulls fan.

The point is, you have always written well, but this is a different kind of writing and you’re going to suck at it for a while. All the things you used to have at your disposal that worked well won’t always fit into this style of writing. The format, the verbiage and the overall approach are all different, so get used to the feeling of falling on your keys for a while.

Learn from your screw ups:  I have this conversation at least once a semester:

Student: “I was wondering why I got such a bad grade on this piece.”
Me: “OK. Did my comments on the paper not make sense to you?”
Student: “I didn’t really read those. I just saw my grade and kind of freaked out.”

Look, I love writing, but writing out tons of comments on a story that was so bad it sapped my will to live, only to have the student ignore them all isn’t my idea of a good time. The whole purpose behind instructors writing comments on papers isn’t so that we have some sort of ground to stand on when an annoying student sues us over a grade. The idea is that we want you to learn something, so we tell you what went wrong so you don’t do it again.

As painful as it is to read the bloody mess of red ink that adorns your paper, dig into it. Learn what didn’t work so you don’t do it again. If you still don’t understand what you did wrong after you look your paper over, be proactive and meet with the instructor. Trust me, we love reading well-written papers so the more help we can give you on the front end, the less Advil we’ll need when we have to grade stuff.

Care more about the skills than the grade: If you would like to cause your instructor to have a “Scanners” moment every single day, make sure to ask two questions at the end of every class:

  1. “Do you know what my grade is?”
  2. “Is this going to be on the test?”

I get that grades matter for some things beyond the classroom: Scholarships, sports eligibility, having mom and dad not disown you… But seriously, once you are done with school, nobody is going to care about your grades, least of all you.

I can remember exactly three grades from my entire academic career:

  1. C-double-minus in penmanship from Mrs. Schutten in third grade. (The rule at that time was that if you got a D, they held you back, and although I was smart enough to pass everything else that year, my penmanship was godawful and she wanted to make absolutely sure I knew that.)
  2. C in Media Law in my junior year of college. (I skipped six weeks of class [long story] and was really, really bad at this whole concept. I prayed out loud for a C to pass during the final. I received applause, much to the chagrin of the instructor.)
  3. A in my first news writing class. (The only reason I remember this is because I wanted so damned badly to impress the instructor that I poured everything I had into that class.)

Beyond that, it’s a long alphabetic blur that ceases to have any value to me. If you focus on just doing stuff to get the grades, you’ll miss out on the skills you need to learn to make yourself marketable once you graduate. Even if you don’t see the point in what you are doing at the time, learn the heck out of the skills and practice them. Case in point:

At the end of the day, the skills will follow you and they will translate from job to job. Nobody, however, is ever going to say to you in a job interview, “So, it looks like you’re a perfect candidate, but let’s talk about this C+ in feature writing…”

Now is the time to care: I’ve told this to students before and it’s the best bit of advice I can possibly give you for any class:

Instead of saying, “I need this class (to graduate, to move on in the major or whatever)!” to your professor after you screwed up your work and you have no hope of getting out alive, say “I need this class (to graduate, to move on in the major or whatever)!” to yourself every day from the beginning of the semester and act accordingly.

Have a great semester and knock ’em dead.

What journalists really mean when they say…

This week already feels 182 days long and I’m not in a flood zone, a hurricane path or a country that just had a missile fired over it. In an attempt to add a little relief for those feeling burnt to a crisp or who just need a laugh, here’s a post on the lighter side: A list of things journalists say and what they actually mean:

BASIC TERMS

Recently: The reporter lost the press release

In recent memory: As far back as the reporter can remember or at least past last Tuesday.

Arguably: The reporter didn’t have time to look up the facts

Debatable: These people are clearly wrong but we need to look objective

“It has been said…” : Where the hell did I hear that from?

“Declined to comment,” : When contacted, person said, “I really want to talk but my lawyer said no. Please don’t hate me.”

“Refused to comment,” : When contacted, person acted like an ass before hanging up.

“Repeated attempts to reach the source were unsuccessful,”: That jerkweed is screening his calls.

Breaking news: We’re telling you about it at the same time everyone else is.

Gone viral: We just found out about something everyone else already knows about

 

POLITICAL TERMS

Spry: Person over the age of 80 who doesn’t need portable oxygen

Feisty: Short, female.

Concerned citizens: Busybodies with nothing better to do than complain

Engaged citizens: People who lead the busybodies

An outsider: “Who the hell is this guy?”

Fake news: Anything that tells me something I don’t want to hear.

Repeatedly: (as in repeatedly declined or repeatedly defended) Person is sticking to his/her stupid position no matter how many times we ask.

Assured: Said more than once but only because the cameras were on; In reality, this won’t be happening.

 “An exciting new opportunity” or “A lifelong dream.” : The reason a public figure gives for leaving public life shortly before the lawsuits start rolling in.

“Trim the budget” : Cut stuff for other people but leave my stuff alone.

 “Devastating budget cuts” : They cut my stuff.

 

SPORTS:

“All he does is win,” : His stats are bad.

“Can’t quantify his value,” : His stats are atrocious.

“A great clubhouse guy,” : He plays cards with the manager and hasn’t had an at bat since the Bush administration.

“He gave it a shot,” : A coach defied all logic and common sense and it backfired.

“He went with his gut” : A coach defied all logic and common sense and it actually worked out for him.

 

CRIME AND DISASTER

Fortunately, Luckily: Somebody just got royally screwed but we’re trying to put a good face on it.

“The altercation escalated” : Somebody said something about somebody’s mama.

 “Sources say,” : I attended a press conference.

“Sources tell me,” : I made a phone call.

“Sources have confirmed,” : Somebody told me that what other people already reported was right.

“Sources exclusively tell me,” : I was trapped in an elevator for an hour with a source who was bored.

“It remains unclear,” : Everyone knows something but nobody’s telling me.

Destruction: Something a fire yields

Devastation: Something a hurricane or tornado yields

“The following images are disturbing…” : Holy crap! You’ve gotta see this!

An uncertain future: The guy is going to jail

If you liked these, the book “Journalese” by Paul Dickson and Bob Skole takes on a wider array of similar terms from a variety of perspectives.

Remembering that first journalism class: “I was scared out of my mind.”

I was recently on a panel that discussed student media and self-censorship. Most, if not all, of the people on the panel were former journalists and several people in the audience had made the transition to the field to the classroom. One theme that came up repeatedly was the way in which students “these days” didn’t have SOMETHING about them. It might be drive, it might be curiosity or it might be a skill. In any case, many of the people who spoke recalled that when THEY were students at THAT age, THEY had whatever it was that the students today seemed to lack in their estimation.

Me? I remember my first journalism class where I thought I knew everything. After working on one assignment, I thought I should go back home and work on that mechanic’s apprenticeship at the gas station.

The instructor was a former journalist, who was working on his Ph.D. He always graded in green because he said green was an affirming color. Well, he affirmed the crap out of me in that first assignment. The paper looked like a shamrock patch had thrown up on it. Arrows and lines were zigging and zagging all over the place like John Madden getting overly excited while using a telestrator. I figured I’d never make it in this business.

A few years later, I had a job at a good local paper, I had been publishing stories frequently and I was given the opportunity to teach that same “first journalism class” that the green-pen instructor taught many years earlier. When he found out I was teaching it, he called me to his office and handed me a file folder with one piece of paper in it: It was my first assignment, still green as a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Chicago.

As I read through all that tortured prose, I remember telling him, “Wow. I sucked.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said. “You were just new at this. When you go to teach your class, remember that in most cases, these students are going to be even worse than you were back then. You need to be patient with them and help them be patient with themselves.”

I thought about that moment after the panel. Maybe those folks were really great journalists since birth. Or, maybe the “Johnny Sain Axiom” on Old Timer’s Day applied here: “The older these guys get, the better they used to be.”

To get a better perspective on this, I asked the hivemind what the folks there could recall about their first journalism class, as in the first time they had to sit down and write for a course. The answers made me feel a little better about my initial experience and I hope they will give you a sense of hope as you start your semester:

This is from an award-winning journalist and professor who spent more than a decade at the Dallas Morning News. She covered the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing and the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas:

The class was full of typewriters. A grizzled old reporter from The Boston Globe taught it. He made us write an obituary on the first day. I got a C. I was scared out of my mind.

Here’s an ode to people who marched to the beat of their own drum from a former Wall Street Journal editor who now works for an Ivy League university as a social sciences writer:

My first journalism instructor in college was a longtime news editor at big metro papers. Along with lots of practical stuff, he taught me that desk editors — and particularly the good ones — tend to march to the beat of their own drummer. He was never on time to class — ever. He told jokes no on else got. He waxed on about obscure figures from his past jobs. But when the lead started flying, he was the guy you wanted in your foxhole. He taught me to appreciate all the weird, talented people newspapers attract.

A longtime photo journalist and college journalism professor had this take away: If your experience with your first journalism course isn’t perfect, don’t give up right away. Take another course or two before you decide that maybe truck-driving school is right for you:

My undergraduate writing Journalism professor was very intimidating. An older guy who had lots of real life experience. I can’t say as I enjoyed the class, but I made it through and went on to be a photojournalist for many years.

FROM THE GOSPEL OF BULL DURHAM

As the movie “Bull Durham” teaches us, in the major leagues, everyone can hit a fastball, so you’ll need to work a little harder to be “the best” (It also helps to have a curve ball.)

A former PR professional in the medical field who now teaches all forms of writing noted that her first experience in a journalism class made that concept clear quite quickly:

The professor asked everyone who was “one of the best writers” at their high school to raise their hand. Lots of hands went up. He asked us to look around. “You have competition, now. And not all of you can still be the best. Get used to it.” It was true – I’ve used that line in my classes as well.

The first writing class can be scary as hell for some people and a piece of cake for others. (One member of the hivemind told me that his class was a piece of cake as he was “ the college paper’s editor before I took J101. Doing the work before taking the class made the class pretty easy.” Score one more for getting involved in student media.)

You aren’t going to be the same writer going out of that class as you are coming in. Give yourself a chance to develop and work with the instructor to improve each time you try something. The more you practice, the better you will get.

One last story: One of the toughest women I ever taught was about to graduate and head off to a prestigious job at a top-flight newspaper. She was dogged, determined and relentless in her reporting. She was a disciplined writer and a demanding editor at the student newspaper. For some reason, the students were reminiscing about their first class in journalism and this woman spoke up:

“You know, you scared the shit out of me that first day,” she told me.

“Me? What did I do?”

“I really don’t remember exactly, but I remember just being freaked out of my mind,” she said. “I went home and cried for like two hours. I thought I’d never make it and I thought about changing my major.”

Go figure.

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. (or how Pat Finley’s set of “toddler-ish” drawings shed light on the Chicago Bears’ pointless media policy)

For the past week, Sun Times journalist Patrick Finley has covered the ins and outs of Chicago Bears’ training camp. Entering his fifth year on the Bears beat, Finley has provided readers with an abundance of copy since camp opened on July 27. He has discussed the issues QB Mike Glennon has in throwing deep and the promise associated with rookie Mitch Trubisky. He has conducted one-on-one podcasts with linebacker Danny Trevathan and running back Jordan Howard. He has also filed feature pieces like his look inside the wide receivers’ room and his story about three players who got a second chance thanks to the Bears.

However, it has been his use of awkward artwork in response to the Bears’ restrictive media policies that has fans and journalists alike paying the most attention to him.

Finley said the Bears allow journalists and fans to watch all of the training camp work, but journalists can only take photos and videos during the first 20 minutes of the day. On the other hand, fans can shoot whatever they want, whenever they want and post it wherever they want.

To provide a touch of levity regarding the absurd double standard, Finley did what journalists have done in court for decades: He created artist’s renderings of what he saw.

The only problem? He can’t draw:

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Finley’s “live look at (rookie QB Mitch) Trubisky.”

“I wish I could say I planned it out, but it made my giggle the first day I drew one,  so I kept doing one a day,” Finley said in an email interview Friday afternoon. “I knew it was silly, but also subversive. Also, that’s the way I draw; I didn’t make it look toddler-ish on purpose.”

Over the next several days, he kept adding to his portfolio with drawings of punt return drills:
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The innovative use of tennis racquets and volleyballs as training tools:

And even a fantastic TD hookup today between Trubisky and wide out Tanner Gentry:

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WGN-TV has even made a point of featuring Finley’s work. Finley said his sketches are among the most-viewed tweets he has published all week and has even drawn the attention of some of the Bears’ PR folks:

“In the last couple days, some PR staff members have asked me about it, but not in a threatening way, and certainly with no request that I stop,” he said.

Finley said he hopes his subversive sketches will draw some much-needed attention to the bigger picture: Why is there one set of rules for journalists and another for the general public?

“You’d think that this would help them realize the policy is silly,” he said in an email. “I mean, fans can post videos and photo online all day! — but we passed that point years ago, I think. If anything, it’s been interesting to watch the public’s reaction (on social media at least) to the media policy.”

To see more great writing and interesting artwork from Finley, follow him here on Twitter.

Cops set nude man on fire, see paragraph 11 (or why you should use the inverted pyramid better)

Oddity is one of the five interest elements we discuss at length in the “Dynamics” series. If people can say, “Did you READ THAT? WOW!” you have a winner. In short, embrace the weird. Consider this lead:

MANITOWOC – Police officers arrested a 32-year-old Manitowoc man Sunday evening for standing in the street without any clothes on.

Public nudity isn’t normal, but it isn’t that odd, either. Here are links to several “public nudity arrest” stories run over the past month or two. Also, the lead here in noun-verb-object order is “Police arrest man.” Not exactly compelling… but keep reading…

Second Paragraph:

Officers found Travis L. Tingler in the 1100 block of South 25th Street near Hamilton Street, where he was shouting toward a home at the intersection that he had a knife and was going to gut people in the house.

Getting there…

Eighth Paragraph:

Police talked to a girl, who was holding a baby, in the home. She said Tingler was dating her mother and they had lived in the home for about two years. She said he started drinking alcohol three hours earlier and started to act weird, making comments such as “Stay in the light and never come into the dark.”

Getting weirder… Hang in there…

Paragraphs 11 and 12:

Police reported Tingler somehow picked up a lighter during the struggle, and when the stun gun probe hit the lighter, a combination of lighter fluid and electricity from the stun gun caused Tingler’s beard and chest hair to catch fire. (Emphasis added)

An officer tried to pat the fire off his body, and Tingler continued to fight even after the fire was put out. He then punched an officer in the face. An officer used a stun gun on him from about 6 feet away, and he then fell and hit his head hard on the pavement.

As the person who forwarded this to me put it: “They set him on fire and you don’t find out for 11 grafs. 11!!!”

If you read the whole story, you find that the headline does mention this, but headlines aren’t there to bail out bad writing. You also find out that the reason this story has this problem is the reporter wrote it chronologically instead of relying on the inverted pyramid.

Very rarely will I say this, but sometimes being arrested naked isn’t the biggest part of the story.

h/t Alex Nemec

UPDATE: Apparently, the paper got the date wrong, so during the “rewrite” of this to fix that problem, they updated the lead:

MANITOWOC – Police officers arrested a 32-year-old Manitowoc man Friday evening for standing in the street without any clothes on. In the process, they accidentally set him on fire.

Not great, but at least they got there…

 

Free Beer from Gov. Scott Walker! (or why social media isn’t a joke)

Social media is easy to use, adaptable to the needs of the users and can reach many people easily. This is why it has become a popular way for athletes, politicians, entertainers and journalists to reach out to the public. However, when you combine that simple, quick media publishing with a lack of journalistic education and virtually no editorial oversight, a lot of “not-so-good” things can happen. This is why I tell students every semester that if they have a Twitter, Instagram, Flickr or Facebook account, they are publishers in the eyes of the law and responsible for everything the disseminate.

In short, you’re playing with live ammo, so be careful.

The book includes the story of Justine Sacco, a PR official who lost her job and saw her life go into a tailspin after an ill-advised tweet about a trip to Africa. Other examples include MLB pitcher Curt Schilling, who lost his job as an analyst at ESPN after he posted comments regarding transgender issues and a teenager from Texas who was fired ON TWITTER for cursing about her job ON TWITTER.

In some cases, it’s not a career-ending situation when someone makes a snap-back comment on social media, but in the case of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, it could lead to a heck of a bar tab.

The governor was said to be perturbed about a WIRED story that accused him of having a boring Instagram account. In response, Walker sent a comeback to his haters:
WalkerBeer

Of course, the story went viral, with multiple media outlets picking it up. Many social media users have also hopped on the issue, calling Walker out for a free beer (and in some cases, a better beer). Walker then upped the ante by offering some cheese curds to go along with the tasty beverage.

Clearly, social media is not a legally binding contract in a situation like this, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the governor would probably like a mulligan on that post.

Lesson of the day: Once something gets out there on social media, you no longer control it, so think for more than a minute or two about what you’re going to post before you post it.

After all, you are playing with live ammo.

Spell words right or the “Terriorists” win

When it comes to mistakes, people often say, “Well, it’s not set in stone.”

Unless, of course, it is.

COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. (AP) – The designer of a Vietnam War memorial in northern Indiana says a misspelling on a bench seems to be getting too much attention.

The memorial was put in place Tuesday outside the Whitley County courthouse in Columbia City. The word “terrorism” was misspelled on a nearby bench.

The artist argues that it’s such a little thing and that people shouldn’t be paying this much attention to it.

“This is the important part: the guys that gave their lives,” Murphy said. “A mistake on a bench is a pretty small thing to worry about where there are so many other things you should concentrate on.”

And we owe them not only a debt of gratitude, but also the time and effort needed to spell their memorial properly.