Cost-cutting is already proving pretty costly
Back when live bands played in pubs and people read newspapers, Melbourne street press, Beat, dropped thousands of copies of its latest edition around the city, each emblazoned with what was unmistakably a cartoon penis on its cover.
This wasn’t the intended cover; it quickly transpired that the paper’s long-serving graphic designer was leaving Beat and, being the one tasked with sending the final files to the printer each week, he simply swapped out the cover for a self-portrait farewell, sent the finished paper off, and hopped on a plane to NYC.
It was an undeniably excellent mic-drop. And, despite questionable word choice (this was 2012, when nothing was offensive), and the moral implications of inflicting cartoon nudity onto an unsuspecting pre-9am Melbourne public, nobody was hurt by this prank – aside from UK band Kaiser Chiefs, who were actually meant to be on the cover of Beat that week.
Fantastic piece Nathan. And great to see you sticking up for the journos. When I worked as a sub-editor on big publications 20 years ago, I was amazed just how many times each page was proofread and how many times mistakes were identified on the fourth or fifth read. It’s simple, really: journalists are human beings and miss things. The only way to guarantee articles come out clean is with multiple pairs of skilled eyes, and people given the breathing space to do their job. Take that away and things go wrong.
Thanks Nathan for such a great read here. I really feel for all media involved.