Stop the Presses -- Sometimes We Goof

In a world where you can pause and rewind live TV (don’t ask me how they do it), isn’t it comforting that a newspaper still can blow it completely while trying for the old-fashioned political scoop?

Sure, newspapers think it’s really cool to get the story straight, but isn’t there solace in knowing that real human beings put out your daily bugle instead of having output controlled by microchips? And that, as real human beings, a royal screw-up is always possible?

If your answer is “Yes, we love it when newspapers show they’re human!,” you must be thrilled with the New York Post, one of Gotham’s tabloids and which ceremoniously announced on its front page Tuesday: “Kerry’s Choice.”

It then went on to identify that choice as Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt. To tout the fact that it was the only paper in America privy to that information, the Post added the magic word: Exclusive.

The full story ran on Page 4, and in lily-gilding language that only tabloids can deliver, the paper added this sub-headline: “Mo. Rep to get Dem veep nod.”

Say that real fast and it sounds like language from an android, but, nope, a real person wrote it.

Alas, as every other paper in America and the rest of the world reported, Gephardt did not get the veep nod. Instead, presidential nominee-to-be John Kerry tapped North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. The Post was left with egg on its front page.

In the days, weeks and decades ahead, critics will chide the Post for its wayward reporting. Call me a silly old fool, but I think it’s great that in 2004 a newspaper can make the same kind of mistake in a presidential season that was made in 1948.

That was the year, of course, that the Chicago Daily Tribune sent this banner headline out to its readers for the morning after the election: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

For those of you scratching your heads while trying to place “President Tom Dewey” in your memory, rest easy. The Tribune had the wrong winner.

Gephardt, whose only discernible linkage with Dewey before this week would have been in a discussion of political magnetism, now will be connected forever to him in the annals of newspaper errors. He has become immortal.

In 1948, the Trib’s mistake was blamed on slow election returns and fast-approaching deadlines. As the mistake crystallized before the eyes of horrified editors, staffers were dispatched by truck and station wagon to snatch the papers from newsstands and doorsteps. Some were retrieved, some weren’t.

A moment of lasting Americana resulted.

If we didn’t take this news business so darn seriously, the Post could have had fun with its error. It would have made for highly entertaining reading if the paper had stuck with its Gephardt scoop, but then run this story on the second day:

“Kerry Flip-Flops, Dumps Gephardt for Edwards.”

Instead, the paper took its lumps. “We unreservedly apologize to our readers for the mistake,” Editor-in-Chief Col Allan said.

I’m guessing, sir, your readers can handle it.

In newspaper terms, the Post’s mistake is a doozy. It raises a valid credibility issue, but it obviously wasn’t a product of deceit.

Somebody goofed.

I hate it when newspapers jump all over politicians for harmless mistakes. Without meaning to, we knock them for being human.

Progress must be served -- and today’s newspapers are plenty mechanized -- but the Post’s mistake tells us that men and women are still at the switch.

Most days, I’ll gladly take the fallibility of humans to the perfection of computers.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.

parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.