I could resign. Or hang myself with a copy of the Observer. Or simply gouge my eyes out with a sharp implement.
The thing is, I didn't even notice it. This morning at the reporters' meeting we have every Tuesday at 11am I began with an enthusiastic 'Well done, team', highlighting straight away the fine reporting throughout the paper, particularly from Lorna Martin (Srebrenica), Martin Bright (Blair's crime meltdown), Gaby Hinsliff (wheels come off Howard campaign) and Mark Townsend (the truth about Britain's 'out of control' borders).
'What about the front page?' one of the reporters asked. I looked at it. Well, the picture of the Colditz survivors was engaging. We had spelt Srebrenica correctly. And all the pictures were in the right place. And the headlines, well, they, looked ok, until . . . until . . . bloody hell, oh my bloody hell.
"Tories faces anger over police killing."
TORIES FACES ANGER OVER POLICE KILLING? On the front page. A headline on the Michael Howard story that was about as correct as Alan Patridge is stylish. A howler, an absolute howler of gut-wrenching proportions. My heart sank. My stomach lurched. Other internal organs sank and lurched in sympathy. What an error. And I was duty editing that night and saw it on a page proof and had completely missed it. And had read the paper fully once again the next day and completely missed it. And read it again on Monday and completely missed it.
And all we can really say to our readers who must wonder how a paper can make such a basic mistake is that we are sorry. And that I read it and missed it. And that the editor, Roger Alton read it and missed it. And that the night production team read it and missed it. And that it is one of those things that you just have to live with for about the next 100 years. A straight-forward cock-up.
Roger, who has been unable to look at the page for large tranches of today such is his depression, admitted that he had been involved in possibly a worse cock-up. He wrote a headline on the day Ronald Reagan won his second term. It was in 96-point (ie very big) on the front page of the Guardian. Reagan wins by a landside. Read it again. Reagan wins by a landside. No one noticed. Which is a small comfort. A very small one. It is difficult to know how we will faces the future.
