For the want of an ‘E’ an appetite was lost, although misspelling Dungeness is preferable to dropping the ‘g’ in Angus.

“Oh my God!” The press release had been triple-checked by me and reviewed by my client at least that many times before I transmitted it to a dozen media outlets. A couple of days later she sent an e-mail with the subject line “uh-oh,” noting an incorrect digit in the phone number exchange (329 instead of 369). I feel very blessed to be working with such an upbeat, it’ll-all-work-out kind of person and she was right, the error turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Our largest daily paper received the correction notice then called to ask where the original press release was. A quick resend made everyone happy. The corrected press release worked its magic, landing my client, a holistic psychotherapist (https://www.facebook.com/holisticpsychotherapy), a dozen or more new clients of her own.

Correctly citing contact information is basic. After allowing myself a few “how could you, you dunce?” moments, I’m viewing my digital faux pas as a positive opportunity to reassure you, dear followers, that my job is not to condemn, only to point out the error of our ways (including my own) for the betterment of readers, writers and editors everywhere.

No one is perfect, but we all can strive for error-free copy, maintaining the highest standards. As one of my writing colleagues recently noted, “All typos must be eradicated from the face of the Earth.” And so the work of rooting out misspellings, typos and incorrectly used verbiage continues on internal and external levels. In that vein, I’ll close with an online Fox TV blooper:

Is it Stephens or Stevens Media? This fair-and-balanced reporter hasn’t decided.

http://www.fox19.com/story/23225004/legal-battle-between-las-vegas-sun-and-review-journal-begins