Coping with ‘brain farts’

My transition from heading up a traditional newsroom to an small online indie news business like RiverheadLOCAL has been mostly happy and exciting. I love reporting and writing — and now I get to do a lot of it. In my former role, I spent a lot of time fixing other people’s copy — which could often be a real workout. What I’m doing now is a lot more fun.

But I sure do miss having copy editors and proofreaders to catch my gaffes. I am a terrible typist, and sometimes I forget to use the spellcheck before I click the “publish” button. Typos are bad enough, but when errors of grammar and syntax slip by, it really makes me crazy. It’s not like having proofreaders and copy editors guarantee perfection. Heck, nobody’s perfect and I can recall more than a few humdingers that made it to print even after being read and re-read by editors, copyeditors and proofreaders.

But then there are mistakes in a category unto their own. I attribute them to a phenomenon I like to call “the brain fart.”

I had one of those last night. And as a consequence, I published a sentence in my story about Ed Romaine running for Brookhaven supervisor that was completely nonsensical if you know anything at all about local politics and government. I wrote that Marc Alessi and Vivian Viloria-Fisher were mentioned as possible Democratic candidates for Romaine’s 1st LD seat. Of course that’s preposterous. For starters, neither of them even live in the district. What I meant to write was Alessi and Viloria-Fisher were mentioned as possible Democratic candidates for Brookhaven Town supervisor.

Two seconds after I published my story, Marc Alessi returned my phone call. He was on his way home from a Brookhaven Democratic Committee meeting where the executive committee decided to back Brian Beedenbender for supervisor. After my interview with Marc, I decided not to revisit and update my story. The Beedenbender recommendation by the executive committee was breaking news, but it wasn’t really local news. It was 9 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten supper yet. If I’d gone back to my story, surely I would have caught the egregious error — well, maybe, but maybe not. My eyes were tired, my brain was even more tired and I was ready for bed.

I seem to have realized the error of my ways in my sleep, because I woke up with a start at 3:45 this morning, thinking “Oh $@#%. Did I really write that Viloria-Fisher was mentioned as a possible candidate in the first LD?!?”

So I had to start my day by publishing a correction.

Truth is, copy editors and proofreaders might not have even caught that mistake. It would depend on how politically astute they were. But a second and third pair of eyes is always a blessing. It’s a blessing I rarely have nowadays. And sometimes it shows.

But there are many other blessings in my new life as a “LION” — the acronym for a new trade group to which I belong; it stands for local independent online news. For those blessings I am extremely grateful. I love Riverhead. I love community journalism. I love the entrepreneurial life. And these three things come together for me in RiverheadLOCAL.com. So I’m willing to endure the embarrassment of some typos and an occasional “brain fart.” Thank you for being willing to endure it with me.  

If you notice a mistake, please email me — denise@riverheadlocal.com — so I can correct it. Regrettably I can’t hire you for the job. The viability of the LION business model — and perhaps a sustainable business model as well for “legacy” media, including newspapers — depends on leanness and efficiency. With increasing frequency, copy editing and proofreading functions are being left to reporters, editors and computers. It’s one of the things about this brave new world of digital journalism I don’t love. But if that’s what it takes for journalism to endure, then so be it. Because the survival of journalism — real journalism — typos and all, is a blessing for everyone.

Denise Civiletti, reporter, editor, digital maven and former newspaper editor and publisher, lives and works in Riverhead. She vaguely remembers having a life away from electronic gadgets before being consumed by her role as a digital-hyperlocal-news-entrepreneur-pioneer — lol— publishing RiverheadLocal.com with her husband Peter Blasl.

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