Guest Correction

From The Oregonian:
Oregonian: Editor died after sex with young woman

PORTLAND -- The Oregonian newspaper reported Monday that Bob Caldwell, the long-time editor of the editorial pages, died in the apartment of a 23-year-old woman after going into cardiac arrest following a sex act.

The paper had previously reported that Caldwell was found in his parked car.

The paper now says the woman was the one who called 9-1-1 on Saturday to report that Caldwell was unresponsive.

According to the correction published in The Oregonian, the woman told deputies she met Caldwell a year ago at Portland Community College and he provided cash for books and other school expenses, in exchange for sex. According to deputies quoted by the paper, no money was exchanged Saturday and therefore no prostitution charges would be filed.

Caldwell joined The Oregonian as a copy editor in 1983. Before taking his post at the head of the editorial section, he worked as a regional, metro and public editor for The Oregonian. He led the paper's editorial board since November 1995.

Caldwell, who was 63 years old, is survived by his wife and three daughters.
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Let's see the CCTimes top that!

St. Augustine Record publisher asks the public to help edit the newspaper

St. Augustine Record publisher Delinda Fogel’s ambitious goal for 2014 “is to eliminate the typos and grammar mistakes in the newspaper.” (The “imate” typo above is from Sunday’s edition of another Florida paper, the Sun-Sentinel.)

She writes:

I hear from some readers that part of the entertainment value of The Record is counting the number of errors. I’m not proud that we have a problem. It is very humbling, but it seems to take an army to help turn this tide.

This isn’t a simple work-at-home project; participants are asked to meet at the Record building to proofread pages from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

publisher“We’ll keep a tally of the proofreading volunteers and award a nice dinner for two to the person who helps us catch the most typos and errors,” writes Fogel (at left). (I’ve sent her an email, asking why she doesn’t hire professionals to edit the paper.)

A former Record employee tells me that the paper has a four-person copy desk and that it’s “extremely overworked, and copy editing ends up being only about 10 percent of the job, as the copy editors also have to lay out the entire paper. There was barely time to proof pages when I was there, and the copy we got from editors was very rough.”

The Record is owned by Morris Communications.

Note to Morris Communications Group Publisher Les Simpson: Last weekend, you wrote on Facebook: “Want to know what is responsible for why newspapers have struggled? I’m afraid it is archaic ‘journalists’ who would rather sit around and whine rather than give the audience what they want. We can still persevere, but quit living in the past. Quit reading Jim Romenesko and go chart the future.”

So charting the future for Morris Communications is taking people off the street and letting them do trained journalists’ jobs?