The Iowa State Daily's Sidebar Mistake Accidentally Condones Rape

As newspaper mistakes go, this one's a whopper.

A recent sidebar on a sexual assault article in the Iowa State Daily mistakenly said it was okay to have sex with those who are asleep, unconscious, inebriated, incapacitated, debilitated or under 16.

The sidebar's header in the Daily's Jan. 12 print edition read "Who can give consent?" An editor's note appended to the online version of the article states that the header was supposed to read "Who cannot give consent?"

The Daily's error has picked up speed around the web and has been sarcastically deemed a "great moment in student journalism."

Alas, student newspaper expert Dan Reimold offers some perspective on his blog College Media Matters, saying that the error shouldn't "distract from what appears to be a well-written story and nice design."

And a reminder to the folks at the Daily -- tomorrow is a new day.

UPDATE: Daily Editor-in-Chief Jessie Opoien has appended an additional note to the article. It says in part:

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Posted: Sunday, January 16, 2011 5:17 pm | Updated: 5:46 pm, Sun Jan 16, 2011.

The Daily's sidebar mistake By Jessica Opoien, [e-mail] Iowa State Daily

On Jan. 12, 2011, the Iowa State Daily published an article about the sexual assault, misconduct and harassment policy at Iowa State, written by Kaitlin York. The story, headlined in print as "Defining dangerous deeds," and online as "Understanding the policies for sexual assault," was about a very serious issue on college campuses.

The story was accompanied by three sidebars, with the intention of providing more information about sexual misconduct. However, a very unfortunate error, on our part, has made one of those sidebars infamous across the Internet. The sidebar, "Who cannot give consent?" was headlined, in print, as "Who can give consent?"

The error, of course, dramatically changed the information that was presented in the sidebar. Copy errors run in publications every day, but this was more severe than the average newspaper misprint.

This was nothing more than a mistake on our part -- not, as some online commenters have suggested, the product of someone with a sick sense of humor. Sexual misconduct is not a laughing matter, and, too often, careless jokes are made that can numb us and make us forget the seriousness of the matter. The Iowa State Daily does not condone sexual misconduct, and we do not take this issue lightly. We deeply regret any offense we may have caused.

View the note in full here.

LOOK:

Comments

[Cthulhu On Call]

02:22 AM on 01/17/2011

People still read printed newspapers?

[jessieopoien]

07:35 PM on 01/16/2011

Thanks for the support, everyone. I can assure you, we will definitely learn from this mistake. For anyone who's interested, here's a more detailed note about the whole situation:
http://iowastatedaily.com/blogs/editors_note/article_701675b4-21a6-11e0-83bd-001cc4c002e0.html

Jessie Opoien
Editor in Chief
Iowa State Daily

[Erica]

01:08 PM on 01/17/2011

Jessie, I suggest contacting HuffPost or the author of this blog. You might be able to get them to link to your editorial on this post. And how you are handling this now will be great experience to draw on when you are interviewing for jobs one day. Good luck!

[DevonTexas]

06:32 PM on 01/16/2011

oops.

[rayinprague]

03:36 PM on 01/16/2011

An early printed version of the King James version of the Bible had a mistake in the Ten Commandments. It said "thou shalt commit adultery." That version is called the "wicked bible" and you can read about it on wikipedia.
"Not" gets left out a lot when it is needed. That is why many newspapers say someone was found innocent, rather than not guilty.

[WoodsideCraig]

02:50 PM on 01/16/2011

Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from totally screwing up and creating a total clusterf**k.

[Dr Confuso]

09:15 AM on 01/16/2011

Remember when there used to be people called proofreaders?

[jaredbrain]

03:55 PM on 01/16/2011

we replaced them with little red wiggly lines.

[crossbones71]

02:41 AM on 01/16/2011

The Iowa State Daily get exclusive Wikileaks release since it is Julian Assange's favorite paper

[Rena Lanford]

03:07 AM on 01/16/2011

Unfortunately, joke is mangled by very stilted and being very unjoke in deliver

[HJBosch]

09:29 PM on 01/15/2011

I see a lot of people taking this REALLY seriously. It was an honest mistake and one that isn't going to cause an uptick in sexual crimes in Iowa.

[LMPE]

09:12 PM on 01/15/2011

oops

[AG creative]

04:48 PM on 01/15/2011

No excuse, there was plenty of room there. Foul.

[holyghostie]

04:33 PM on 01/15/2011

Don't worry kids....there is a job waiting for you at the NY POST.

[Rachael Crawley]

02:53 PM on 01/15/2011

That's...awkward.

[AudsMom]

11:40 AM on 01/15/2011

well then by all means, let us jump to conclusions and say any rape that happens in the US after this is directly attributed to this tiny little newspaper post.

[mcmutter]

10:30 AM on 01/15/2011

... and I thought Iowa was populated by Holy Rollers ....

[EJavaM07]

10:25 AM on 01/15/2011

Just like writing software: a pretty, well-designed user interface is no substitute for accuracy of output.