Margaret Sullivan: The Existential Dread of Journalists Watching the Sarah Palin Trial

From a Washington Post media column by Margaret Sullivan headlined “The existential dread of journalists watching the Sarah Palin trial”:

Every journalist knows the feeling. Your story — or the story you’ve edited — has been published, maybe on a tight deadline, and you realize too late that it contains a mistake. Cue the stages of grief: Defensive disbelief. Horror. Resignation. Self-flagellation. And finally, a humiliating correction notice permanently branded on your work.

The error could be something small and careless, like a misspelled name. It could be substantial; I still remember all too vividly an error I made decades ago, as a rookie Buffalo News business reporter, when I calculated the probable cost of a building renovation and got it wrong.