It's a variation on the now modern classic 'heady here heady here'.
We almost sent a page out in the Saturday evening football Pink Echo with the headline 'Hyder has a tiny knob' on the Tranmere report.
Almost.

which contained a lot of annotated diagrams. The designer was in the habit of putting 'what the fuck's this?' at the end of the leader lines (for the subs to fill in the text boxes).

Came very close to going to print once. The editor sensibly told him to stop it.

I have nightmares about that sort of thing happening to me. Whoever did this has my deepest sympathy.. Today won't be easy.

that accidentally published a lady's minge on the front cover. Now that was funny (only because it wasn't my fault).

Winston Churchill when Prime Minister would write comments in the margin of reports submitted to him and send these back for further action. He was also forthright in his opinion about the advice he was given and, if he disagreed, would write 'Bollocks!' beside it.

One civil servant, whose advice Sir Winston would regularly disparage, took umbrage at the language used and let this be known, via the chain of command, to the great man himself. Churchill read the guys next report and instead of his usual 'bollocks' wrote 'round objects' in the margin.

To which the civil servant wrote back: "Who is Round and to what does he object?"

...wanted to get this in before anyone else does, but the classic story from the early 90s when I was at Future Publishing in Bath was a caption in a games mag that was left as 'Type some shit in here'. For a few years this became the standard caption mantra if any 'comedy' captions were put in by freelancers etc. "We don't want another 'Type some shit in here's, do we?"

Of course the other classic was the cover of Amiga Format that read 'Sieze the future' April 93 issue, huge spelling mistake in 120pt on the cover.

See also Danny Dyer and production editors.

The Welsh says "I'm out of the office at the moment. Please send on anything that needs translating."

was exactly the cry that went up round the newsroom this morning when this came in on email.

We’ve all had heart-stopping cock-ups, but I can’t ever remember seeing a splash head like this. I suspect the printers may not get on well with staff at this title.

In the first edition of a paper I launched some years ago I wrote a piece at 3am that claimed Wellington “took up a life of soldering against the wishes of his mother”.

My, how the publisher was pleased that we made Private Eye with issue one.

Spotted, in time, on the stone:
'Penisoner is prisoner in own home'
Not spotted on stone:
'Dyxlexia classes launched'
Greatest correction:
'He was charged with possessing a quantity of rugs and not drugs as we erroneously stated. We apologise for any etc...'

What's wrong with enjoying Northern Cyprus?

One designer I worked with (not at THE WORD) had the habit of writing the dummy text "wanky wanky wankeroo" in caption boxes. There were many close escapes. I also recall famed journal of the women's movement MS. Magazine going to press with a cover line about "The Future Of Feminisim".

The actual cover.

New Fast Automatic Daffodils have reformed, though.

...pnawn da pob. I can confirm that the first sentence is I'm not in the office at the moment but after that my Gymraeg gets a bit Cym-ragged.
Having produced a few missives concerning "Public Sector" it's amazing how often the letter "l" goes missing.

I know a designer who cut a sample from a folder to send to a paper merchant and then sent the folder off to the printer as a folding guide.

The printer then produced 10,000 folders all with a neat little square punched out of the back to match the hole that the paper sample left. She tells me that she still has nightmares about it 10 years on.

The South Wales Argus would feature a small advert on the cover from a local Indian restaurant, which would feature 2 or 3 comments from satisfied customers.

One day the advert featured the following recommendation:

"The desserts are as big as my tits"

I used to lay out the Council newspaper, it was a real Mickey Mouse team: no editor, no subs just 4 press officers and one designer. At the time I was also working weekends at The Express to fund a new amp, not the greatest of papers but at least I got an insight as to how a 'real' paper is produced.
We had none of the systems in place that were common in newspaperland, and were constantly flying by the seat of our pants. It was a nightmare every 3 months, we all dreaded it.
Confession time:
I am guilty of putting daft captions to pics and bogus headlines to stories, it was the only light relief in a time of weeping and wailing. My fave caption was one for a pic of Princess Anne and the Head of Leisure (a Geordie) perusing an exhibit at one of our heritage sites, it went AFAICR "Eww what's orl theese stuff then"? "That pet, is a bonny spread aw hame made scones n'ahm ganna gie it a reet guid ploatin'".
Unfortunately the bossbitch at the time got a hold of a print out with this on it. I got a reet guid ploatin!

I was once sent to edit a wee free paper in West Lancs as well as coach the oldies in the darks arts of Quark 4.0. (I am giving myself and enormous amount of side here describing it as editing - it was 36 pages twice a week where the most creative job was the church listings.)
However to amuse ourselves me and the deputy editor of the paid-for title tried to get as many music references into headlines and captions. Joy Division/ New Order one week, Nirvana the next etc.
I love the idea that in years to come someone's going to wonder about captions that read CEREMONY: Members of Ormskirk's Comrades bowling club will never be left in a lonely place again with the opening of a new club house...
Cor, we were annoying twats.

A few years ago we had a major redesign on SFX. Lots of creative sweat, serious fanfare. The opening line of the editorial in the relaunch issue was "Welcome to the swanky new-look SFX!"

Somewhere between the final proof of the page and the printing house this had become "Welcome to the wanky new-look SFX!"

Only a heart-stopping, last-minute telephone call from a keen-eyed production person prevented this peculiarly self-deprecating aloha from hitting the nation's shelves.

like, so last century?

...and that is perhaps the reason why cock-ups like this happen with greater regularity

but what are the processes that allow something like this to actually go to press?

A staggeringly jejune trainee was puzzled when I told her I had to spike her court story about a woman who stole a packet of Tampax (TM) and received a conditional discharge.

Another began a court report about a bar barney with: 'A man was chased into a pub toilet and beaten savagely with stools.'

And, possibly my ultimate fave: in another pub fracas a police spokesman said: 'The victim was kicked in the toilet area.'

ps It would be churlish not to mention my own bloopers such as describing someone as wearing a 'distinctive T-shit' (I suppose it would be distinctive) and once absent-midedly typing my own phone number in a story about police appealing for witnesses to some nasty infraction.

Normally, in the olden days, Dave, the page would have been designed by someone, then passed to the splash sub-editor to edit the copy and perhaps write the headline (if it hadn't been written by a senior editor already - an example of an editor writing a great headline below). At that stage a production editor would send it off to the presses having thrown an eye ball around it one more time.
Now, with subs being seen as a luxury of the modern multi-skilled era, the designer, production editor and sub are often the same person.
And with the reliance on filling templates (to replace designers) and new technologies and centralised systems, mistakes are more prevalent.
This is a cracking splash where the editor came out and wrote the headline and sub-deck himself in the old fashioned way. One of the great sub-heads of all time IMO.

But what I find interesting is reading the posts on this thread from those who work within the fourth estate. Some are constructed beautifully; concise prose using words and punctuation as they should be used. I assume that these are written by people who are, or were, sub-editors.

Others make me gasp. I'm not a wordsmith. I'm a dentist. But.. bloody hell..

I'm assuming these bits are written by journalists who have become used to having their copy automatically subbed down in rather efficient fashion and forget that such things don't happen automatically here..

We deeply regret that we printed that Ola and Kari Nordmann died last saturday. They got married.

Years ago, I used to read travel news. Part of the job was recording the premium rate travel line: we had ring a number, read a long, long list of roadworks and press a button to save it. Any mistakes, you had to press another button and start again.

So pity my colleague, who fluffed up halfway through recording the travel line, exclaimed "OH FUCK IT!", pressed the button to delete, then hung up intending to re-record it later.

Yes, you've guessed it. He pressed the wrong button, forgot to re-record it, and so forced hundreds of angry punters to pay 33p per minute for the pleasure of someone shouting "And on the M6 there are queues at... OH FUCK IT!".

at work I write, edit, sub-edit and proof my own stuff. I can feel all the hacks flinching as they read this. I regularly wake up in a cold sweat thinking I've sent something disastrous to print, but generally I get away with it.

Apart from the time I put the wrong person's name on an obituary.

I remember Flight, many many years ago, showing at sign at a UK airport that looked pretty normal at first glance, black on yellow, etc etc.

Closer inspection showed the signwriter had carefully written

"Departurtures"

Oh, this thread brings back memories.

There was the time the note to the news editor about a mistake in the news diary made it to page three of the paper as a one par filler with the heading 'Wrong date.'

Or the time when the two WOBs (White on Black) headings on a page were mixed up. It ended up with the shot of a retiring priest and his two elderly supporters next to the headline 'Pillage and plunder - they love it.'

And then there was the feature about the anniversary of a local charity - 'The blind look back on 25 years of good work.'

I also remember around the same time Eddie Shah's Today paper had a feature with the standfirst, 'Alan Bennett looks up his old friend David Hockney.'

Spent working on the student rag or weekly Union newsletters. The biggest amount of debate was aimed at Sun-style headlines that were suitable for print.

One story was about a university chancellor election between Clement Freud & a topless model. The result? "Chunky Clement comes on top of tasty morsel". It helps if you know Clem was the face of ads for dog food at the time.

Then there was the time we rang through an order for t-shirts that arrived back saying "Poly Disco. Every Wenesday & Saturday".

http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/6620

Many years ago I worked for a struggling Dundee-based national magazine and newspaper publisher, in their "youth" magazines dept.

It was the time when glossy young women's magazines were hitting the shelves, like Just Seventeen and Mizz. So our doughty publishers spent a great deal of time and money planning their entry into this market, with an unprecedented TV advertising campaign in the works.

They gathered all the staff together to proudly launch the campaign. We all sat waiting expectantly as the bearded 40-something Masonic Dundonian who was the Managing Editor (and who knew precisely nothing about teenagers) stood up, drew back the curtains and announced...

"Shout... A Girl's First Monthly"

Oh, how we laughed..

Many years ago I worked for a struggling Dundee-based national magazine and newspaper publisher, in their "youth" magazines dept.

It was the time when glossy young women's magazines were hitting the shelves, like Just Seventeen and Mizz. So our doughty publishers spent a great deal of time and money planning their entry into this market, with an unprecedented TV advertising campaign in the works.

They gathered all the staff together to proudly launch the campaign. We all sat waiting expectantly as the bearded 40-something Masonic Dundonian who was the Managing Editor (and who knew precisely nothing about teenagers) stood up, drew back the curtains and announced...

"Shout... A Girl's First Monthly"

Oh, how we laughed..

Blinking laptop's on a go-slow, hence the double post

Back during my time at HMV, we were running co-op tube posters with MCA for the latest Mary J Blige album. Imagine the record company's consternation when the posters appeared with the legend, 'the new album from Mary J BILGE'... If this wasn't bad enough, the hilarious typo was then reported upon in the following weeks music industry rag, Music Week.

Needless to say, MCA were well and truly pissed off.

A couple of weeks later I was working with MCA on some ads for some John Lee Hooker ads. For a laugh I had one mocked up with John Lee Hooker becoming John SHE Hooker. Cue the following phone call from MCA, "Crouch! (my surname), do you yoga?". Me, "What?". MCA representative, "Stick your head up your arse!" Click.....

They were aiming to corner the periodical market then?

...had a story about a physiotherapist who was giving head and neck massages to doctors.

I'm not making this up I promise. A biscuit manufacturer has released two new products, Jaffa Shortcake and Caramel Shortcake. The headline that came to me (genuinely not making this up) was: Foxes new snacks.

Our local paper has a story about local pubs this week, and how the World Cup is "...a real shot in the arm".

I used to knock about with a girl who was a filthy strumpet when I knew her, but had evidently been an innocent abroad earlier in her life, most obviously during 1985 when she had had a large quantity of posters, banners, pens and sundry promotional tat printed up for a convention / exhibition for the Quality Control industry.
The exhibition was called "Quality in Manufacturing '85," they had little use for boxes of stuff all emblazoned with "QUIM-85 in big, bold type...

Is there some irony in that I was informed about this in an e-mail that included the sentence "favourite Back Country son, Telly Savalis"!!!!!! ??

Aren't subs notoriuosly rubbish at COMMUNICATING?

There seem to be more subs contributing to this site than are now left working in the industry...
The headline horror at top is (allegedly) down to the Atex system, used by newspaper proprietors sacrificing staff and standards to keep profits coming in (see also the recent already infamous Sheffield Star headshots cock-up).
Good luck to all you other subs struggling to keep a skill alive in a a dying industry.

She left me for a hovercraft.

... as a cub reporter I wrote for NZ's equivalent of Radio Times, about JB Priestley when he was in his 90s. The topic was his series of "Time" plays. My suggestion of "Time is On My Side" was taken up. He then died while the mag was at the printers, and they had time to change it at great expense. They ignored my replacement suggestion of "Time Waits for No One".

Fiveteen years later, older and wiser, but foolish enough to work for miserable offshore publishers with no interest in local other than as a cash cow, I ran a story about the country's annual cheese competitions. My temporary headline was "Cutting the Cheese", an expression in New Zealand for farting. I was surprised that no one in the Australian office - the only place in that country without a sense of humour, I often felt - spotted it. Being a contract magazine for a serious client, I reluctantly had to pull it... any other jokes that have gone seriously wrong?

for the S Vega acoustic tour in current edition of mag-pleased to see she'll be playing "Basingsoke". Sounds wonderfully Hogarthian ...

And thanks to whoever mentioned We7 on this site, btw, just been playing the Vega acoustic album from there.