Editors of the Seattle Times were apologizing profusely after a screwup in the composing room -- where the newspaper is made up -- resulted in a stock obituary headline appearing over an ad for Alaska Airlines in the Sunday edition. Linking death to airlines has always been a newsroom no-no, which is why airline ads are always pulled after a plane crash. But this one, coming after the recent crash of Alaska Air's Flight 261, hit a nerve. The mistake was caught and fixed after 50,000 papers of the 500,000 run had been printed, but it was too late to prevent the bulk of those from being delivered.
Stop the Presses
Editors of the Seattle Times were apologizing profusely after a screwup in the composing room -- where the newspaper is made up -- resulted in a stock obituary headline appearing over an ad for Alaska Airlines in the Sunday edition. Linking death to airlines has always been a newsroom no-no, which is why airline ads are always pulled after a plane crash. But this one, coming after the recent crash of Alaska Air's Flight 261, hit a nerve. The mistake was caught and fixed after 50,000 papers of the 500,000 run had been printed, but it was too late to prevent the bulk of those from being delivered.
