The powerful position a newspaper holds within its community is never more apparent than when the paper publishes grossly incorrect information about an innocent person.

Whether the misinformation was a mistake or a blatant disrespect for professionalism, the widespread damage caused by the false words offend and hurt many people.

Unfortunately, the inexcusable act of publishing false information occurred in the Tuesday edition of the Iowa State Daily.

As journalism students, one of the first rules we learn in our basic reporting classes is to be careful when writing the facts of a story. Accuracy in reporting is the basic foundation of a responsible and free press. It is what newspapers strive to maintain each day in order to earn the trust and respect of their readers.

Another rule all good journalists are taught is to not engage in “horseplay” in the newsroom. As student journalists, we especially try to keep the atmosphere of the Daily newsroom professional and business-like so as to prepare ourselves for our first real jobs. A quote or statement that is intended to be funny for those in the newsroom appears vicious and damaging to those who read it in print.

Yesterday’s Daily contained a classic example of what good journalists should never do. In fact, yesterday’s Daily contained a textbook example of one of the worst mistakes a newspaper staff can make.

A cutline for a photo written by a new Daily photographer, Eric Neely, was intended as a joke to be read by the photo editors. Though it was tasteless and offensive, the cutline was never written with the intent of publication.

How the cutline actually made it into the final version of the Daily is a result of carelessness by a number of Daily employees. Two photo editors, Ian McInroy and Andrea Melendez, both read the cutline and did not change it. Once the cutline was placed on the page, an alert copy editor brought it to my attention and asked if it was true or just a joke.

After reading the cutline, I was annoyed that it had gotten this far, but I knew we would change it and avert disaster. Unfortunately, disaster occurs more often than we would like at the Daily. Apparently, after the cutline was corrected, the final of page one did not get changed.

There are many people who can be blamed for this mistake — the photographer who wrote it, the photo editors who let it pass, but most importantly me, the editor in chief who is responsible for every word that appears in our newspaper. I should have double-checked our final copy to ensure the mistake had been changed, but I didn’t. In doing so, I broke a very basic rule of journalism — double check everything.

The Daily staff owes Matt Dietrich, the subject of the photo and cutline, an apology. There is no excuse for such unprofessional and careless behavior and we are indeed sorry. Our apology will appear in a correction on the front page of today’s and tomorrow’s Daily.

We also owe you, our readers, an apology. We do not condone such offensive and tasteless jokes in the Daily office, and we are sorry you had to see one on the front page of your student newspaper.

The cutline appeared to make light of a serious situation; we did not intend for that to happen. We have undoubtedly lost your respect and trust because of this error. We owe you good journalism, not horseplay, and we will do our best to ensure you of this in the future.

While no one can promise a perfect newspaper, what you read in the Daily for the rest of the semester will be our best work.

Again, the entire Daily staff offers our sincerest apologies to Matt Dietrich and all of our Daily readers.

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Keesia Wirt is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Panora. She is the editor in chief of the Daily.