Last Sunday my local paper had this for the major headline:

[Casandia]

"Three young women, bound, raped, and strangled"

This HUGE article took up almost the entire area above the fold. This murder was almost 50 years ago, btw.

Off to the right of this huge story, was a small column about Biden winning the White House. At least this article was above the fold....

And in today's paper - BELOW the fold, on the far right column, was an apology by the President of MLive Media Group.

"Dear readers,
Last Sunday's front page was not up to our standards, not what you deserved in the aftermath of a momentous presidential election. Facing early deadlines, we failed to adequately anticipate the possibility of a Biden victory before you received your Sunday newspaper. As a result, the news was not given the prominence it deserved.

The decisions were made in our production center and do not reflect the work of journalists at your local paper or MLive, where Saturday's news was delivered as it took place with appropriate weight and context. We are reviewing our processes to ensure similar mistakes do not happen again. Please accept my apology.
Tim Gruber
President, MLive Media Group."

I guess my complaint was heard after all??

[Rorey]

1. ..."we failed to adequately anticipate the possibility of a Biden victory..."

Let's not gloss over that. WTF??? No intelligent person can buy that excuse.

[Blue_playwright]

3. They worded that badly...

... I did the journalism thing for years. I think it was less editorial and more based on logistics.

You build your pages out and have the front page and back pages linked in the system. A ton of the interior pages are put together based on the design and content (continued stories) of the front page. What seems like an easy fix, just drop down a feature story to add in the Biden win, can actually be a major redesign and time consuming.

With the shrinking of newspapers, the big kicker here is that they aren’t all still printed on site. Nowadays, for example, the papers can be printed 100s of miles away and trucked back in. And multiple papers use the same facility. So, where in the past, I could hold presses until well after midnight, papers might have deadlines as early as 2 p.m. in order to get all the printing done.

He’s right, they should have done better. But the internet is absolutely killing most newspapers and that team was stuck with the system as it exists. They likely pulled an article that didn’t screw with the overall layout and ran with it in order to get it in at all.

[UpInArms]

5. I always wrote two stories ...

With either candidate winning ... leaving blanks or percentages...

[Hekate]

15. Makes a lot of sense

[Blue_playwright]

19. And obits before folks actually died

[Phoenix61]

6. I was the night shift computer operator

for a local newspaper back when they pasted the pages. Things were printed onto paper that had to be developed like film. I’d go in a dark room through a spinning door and take the paper from the printer and feed it into the developing machine. It would come out outside of the darkroom and I’d run it over to the newsroom. They would run it through a wax machine and cut and paste it into the boards. Hadn’t thought about that I’m years.

[Hekate]

14. TY to you too. Very interesting

[Blue_playwright]

18. I did that in high school and my first year or two...

Of college papers.

Chart pak. That horrible black tape to make boxes. hated that stuff

[Hekate]

13. TY for that info -- very interesting

[Ohioboy]

2. Good for you that you complained

[raccoon]

4. What city do you live in?

And good for you challenging this BS.

[Casandia]

7. This paper is the Flint Journal

and is owned by MLive - which is pretty much state wide.

[mahannah]

8. MLive wonders why they can't sell papers. This was also the front page in Kalamazoo. Pathetic.

[DownriverDem]

9. MLive?

Is this in Michigan?

[Casandia]

12. Yep

You have the Free Press Downriver - no MLive I assume
MLive pretty much every place else - Gr Rapids, KZoo, etc
I mail my subscription check for the paper to a Kentucky address!

[3825-87867]

10. Hillary Rodham Clinton Cheats at Yahtzee!

Oops! We're sorry. Didn't mean for that to be printed. Clerical error! The name was incorrect! It should have been blag blah from where ever. New person working, etc, etc, etc. So sorry!

Typical Right Wing BS. Make the obvious incorrect statement ( on purpose) then apologize afterward. No harm No Foul! Unless it was done by any Democratic Paper or Organization.

BS!

[BobTheSubgenius]

11. That seems genuine enough.

I guess I'd have to let them off the hook, after that.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Sunday editions are often printed up

far sooner than the other six days, and often use previously prepared articles of various kinds.

When we lived in the Denver area, the Sunday Post hit the newsstands and stores by 3pm on Saturday afternoon. Needless to say, nothing that happened on Saturday itself was going to be reported on. Unlike some other newspapers, I'm guessing they reported the Saturday Night Massacre on Monday, maybe even on Tuesday.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. An Issue With Their Explanation

I think the apology is sincere, but they knew somebody was going to win the election.
Seems like they would have reserved banner & story space for the election outcome.
So, no matter who won, it seems like they should have had the election as the primary story.