“God Save the Sheet“, wrote a reader on social media. Jokes about the newspaper ran wild on April 11 this year.
In the late morning of that day, the Sheet published an error that generated memes and entered the folklore of Brazilian journalism. “Elizabeth II, longest-lived queen in British history, dies aged 20,” she announced. As the planet knows, she died last Thursday (8), aged 96.
Some soon realized that it was a flaw and treated the matter with grace: “How cute Sheet not want to reveal how old the queen died,” wrote Gregorio Duvivier, actor, writer and columnist for the newspaper.
Also came galloping conclusions without head or tail. “THE Folha de S.Paulo tried to kill the queen of england to see if people would buy [o jornal]. If they had, they would certainly have tried to kill President Bolsonaro too,” wrote Bolsonarista Oduwaldo Calixto, president of the PL in Arapongas (PR).
The publication was a serious mistake, but it was due to a technical glitch — of course, conspiracy theorists didn’t believe it.
Just over 20 minutes after the incorrect text, the newspaper published an erratum: “Due to a technical error, the Sheet mistakenly published, on Monday morning (11), an obituary of Queen Elizabeth II, of the United Kingdom. It is customary in journalism to prepare texts in advance about possible and/or probable scenarios, such as the death of world leaders, celebrities and public figures. THE Sheet regret the mistake. The content has been taken down.”
The gaffe reverberated in prestigious outlets abroad, such as the English newspaper The Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel. The British publication reported the error with sobriety and cited the jokes that circulated through social networks.
At the end of the Editorial Manual of Sheet, there is a section called “I was wrong, but who are not wrong”. The introduction of this excerpt reminds us that the newspaper was the first in the country to create, in 1991, a fixed space to gather corrections of errors found, the Erramos section.
“Inattention, haste, ignorance and lack of proofreading can produce embarrassing mistakes – and, as the following selection makes clear, Erramos don’t do it for less,” says the Handbook.
A set of two of them was especially embarrassing and, ironically, it was also a report on the Queen — from September 2015, when Elizabeth overtook Queen Victoria as the longest-serving occupant of the British throne.
In an almanac format, “The Britpop Queen” gathered curiosities about the sovereign and the pop universe that has always surrounded her, but brought eight incorrect information. The errors concerned countries of which she was head of state (Pakistan and South Africa are not among them), kinship relationships (Prince George is her great-grandson, not grandson) and dates (Beatle Paul McCartney became Sir in 1997, not 1995).
Corrections were published in the print version of the journal three and six days after publication.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
