A lasting leaving lesson

Today I was in a wedding. Usually, this means you get your hair done, get in a dress, assist the bride and eat cake. I did these things. For me though, it meant I had to push aside news for the day. This was as fatal a mistake you can make as an editor.

I'm graduating so I've been training a new news editor for a while now. He's watched me over the last year, more. He knows I use no fewer than three sources an article and fact checking is about 80 percent of my job.

Today, while I was gone, he posted an article to the Web that libeled two women. It accused them of something, and in the end we could have gotten sued and lost the paper had I not seen it soon after it was posted.

It makes me think I focused too much on my perceptions of perfection for my section instead of investing more time into training the future section leader. At the same time, everyone has to learn the hard way.