The News-Enterprise in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, had a story on its front page today that paraphrased a local police official as saying that most cops typically go into law enforcement “because they have a desire to shoot minorities.” Spicy stuff! Only problem: It never happened.
The paper quickly issued a retraction on its home page and updated the online version of the story—ironically headlined “Law enforcement to be honored for service”—to include a formal apology from editor Ben Sheroan. The corrected story now reads: “Hardin County Sheriff John Ward said those who go into the law enforcement profession typically do it because they have a desire to serve the community.”
So what happened? The paper initially called it a “typographical mistake” but that obviously didn’t make any sense. Jim Romenesko reports that it was actually a joke mistake. “One [copy desk staffer] wrote the ‘shoot minorities’ line on the page proof as a joke and the second—in charge of the front page—put it in the story.”
Never joke on the page proofs.
This is a really bad error in Elizabethtown newspaper…I mean really bad: pic.twitter.com/R07pgmTiMd
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) January 8, 2015