Seattle Times Accidentally Prints 20,000 Papers With A "2012 Wrap Up"

The mistake was on page one in big, red font.

The life of a newsroom copy editor can be difficult, having to comb through thousands of words for errant typos or dangling modifiers. But sometimes the mistakes are staring at you in BIG RED FONT ON PAGE ONE.

The Seattle Times printed 20,000 copies of a "bulldog" – or early edition – of its Sunday paper, featuring the headline "2012 Wrap Up."

Pressroom employee J. Michael Klop told the media blog JimRomenesko.com that printing press workers noticed the headline early on and alerted the editorial team, correctly believing it to be a mistake and not a nostalgic look back on the year Barack Obama was re-elected and London hosted the Olympics.

"There was nobody there who was willing to make a decision to stop the run and remake the page," Klop said. "Finally, after finishing the run, there was a call back from downtown saying to wait for a new set of plates… as they were going to toss the entire 20,000 and rerun the full draw."

The paper's editor, Kathy Best, told the blog that the "crazy holiday weekend schedule" was to blame for the "glaring error."

"Because the press run only lasts about 30 minutes, we didn't send a corrected page in time to catch the run," Best said. "Not a great day, including missing a chance to say stop the presses."

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the paper was a Saturday edition, when it was in fact a Sunday edition. Ah, irony.

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