Typos in the Tripod

Talia Cutler ‘27

Editor in Chief

In a perfect world, our sparse staff of eleven (four graduating seniors, two student athletes, three in greek life, in the finance association, in IHouse, Model UN, and the Vernacular, all of whom take a full course load) would craft a perfect paper, devoid of any mistake, week after week. But, in the immortal words of The Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want.” 

Mistakes do not exist in a vacuum. There is room for error embedded into the context of production. For example, the Tripod is completely against the use of generative AI, as listed in our policies. We do not use AI to write any articles, we do not use AI to edit and we certainly do not use AI as we design. Thus, even as we copy edit well into Monday night to get the papers printed on Tuesday, some errors slip through the cracks. Maybe I am biased, but I like to think of these errors as irrefutable proof of labour, that human work went into this paper. 

Of course, we strive towards perfection. What paper would we be if we didn’t? Yet, when producing on a tight deadline, the quality we tend to give our attention to is less focused on AP Style and more on the quality and veracity of information above all else — in other words, the less obvious. Other times, there are events simply out of our control that contribute towards a downturn in quality; Sometimes sources do not respond. Sometimes writers fall through, leaving me or Bella to conjure something in an hour, or Alex to box up the page. It happens. We move on. Some of our readers do not. Why is that?

The perfect newspaper is an elusive quality — the truth is, our staff could always be doing more.

But sometimes, we must sacrifice one thing for another. We could have more rigorous training periods, but that would inhibit accessibility and interest. We could cover more off-campus events, but that takes resources we could be using elsewhere. 

Three of our articles were written by a singular new editor (who we should pay overtime to). Three were written by another editor, who also handles the Tripod’s design (and is perhaps the definition of overtime). Three were written by our managing editor, with the gaps filled in by some talented staff. This week, here is what we could churn out:  

In News, we have coverage on Tina-Marie Lugo’s Women’s History Month event, as well as Attorney General William Tong’s discussion on gun safety. In Opinion, our editors opine on private equity, Chartwells and the new entrepreneurship center. Arts covers Paul Schrader in the A.K Smith Scholar Series. In sports, you’ll find pieces on the closure of Women’s basketball’s season, as well as Men’s lacrosse first season opener win in over a decade — and they say they weren’t prepared! Lastly, B&P has some gut splitting articles as usual, including a YikYak advice column, brought back by popular demand.

I should warn you, though; some articles may contain typos. I hope and pray that this does not personally offend you. If it does, I recommend you go outside — it’s quite lovely out there! We at the Tripod essay towards quality, but we never expect it. At a school with no journalism program, we function as an unfinished product; a place for people to learn how to write, a place for trial and error. 

If you would like to write for the Tripod or help us edit on Monday nights, stop by our office in the Jackson basement at 6 p.m.! Please be familiar with AP style and/or be semi-literate (optional).

In peace, 

TBC