Much as I enjoy stories of errors in newspapers (one of the best I've seen was out local newspaper which had "headline in here" in 144pt - 2" - type, an error that I caused to be seen on TV and in the book Type & Layout), they are not happening *just* because of new systems. They have happened even in manual days because of the rush to get the first edition on the streets.
It has always been one of the benefits of living in a country area or one distant from the production point. (The UK newspaper the Guardian became known as "The Grauniad" by Private Eye because of all the spelling errors there was no time to fix.) What should be noted is that most such errors are soon fixed and the vast majority of the readership will have seen nothing odd.
When I was a subeditor on one of Murdoch's newspapers I recall the deputy editor looking at the first edition and shouting at the copy desk: "Well we got it out, now let's turn it into a newspaper". And that was in hot metal days.
The normal setup for newspaper staffing is that galleys, or their equivalent, are read either in printed proof form or on screen, originally by proofreaders, now more likely as part of the copyediting process.
At this stage the copyeditor should take out rude words in the slug because they too often get through to print. The slug is the abbreviated text used to identify a story, originally one word, now more often a kind of suggested headline. As a newspaper editor and chief of staff I banned this kind of dummy head; even if the person writing it would not want it to be the final one it should be something which makes sense and helps clarify what the main point is of the story. If the writer can't write any kind of headline, then it often idicates that the writer is confused.
The headline itself is usually added on the page layout so may be seen only by the person doing the layout of the page. In the past, errors and questionable headlines were often picked up by the compositors, i.e. those who put the page together in metal or phototypesetting, but those people no longer exist. It is therefore most likely the end of the compositor which leads to more errors getting through -- they'd even take a hammer to the plate on the press if necessary since it was sometimes preferable to ensure that no one could read it rather than let an error go through. You can't effectively take a hammer to a digital press, though I'm sure there are many who would have liked to.
The proofreaders who were reading the page proofs might still have been reading the proofs when the press started. On a newspaper with a large or growing circulation, the plate with those changes might then sit by the press until there was a paper break and the press had to be stopped unless there was some danger of legal action. There were trucks, trains, buses and sometimes even aircraft waiting for the newspaper bundles. A little embarrassment for a journalist or editor was not a consideration.
We may actually see fewer errors as newsrooms change over from a print first attitude to one of web first, so the more carefully researched and probably longer print version would have already appeared in two or three versions on the web. Any errors which get through to print will have happened in the final rewrite stage.
The future of news stories is seen in a quote from the consultant brought in by Vance Publishing chief Peggy Waker (even though that's a magazine group): "Instead of researching and writing a lengthy print article, then repurposing it for the Web, the new process would run in reverse: posting a first take of breaking news at 200 words, following with an update at 400 words, then producing a longer second-day story, which would subsequently be repurposed for the print publication." See http://bit.ly/3dDiBU
Ms Walker also tells of expecting an outcry when the web and press editing teams were merged, and not just for single publications but for the whole group. Unexpectedly the large open editorial room was popular -- as it used to be when most publishers were like that.
I'm also pleased to see that computers are now significantly quieter. When I first changed from paper editing the increase in noise level and the size of the monitors meant there was a massive divide between editors. No longer could you read out a questionable phrase to no one in particular, confident that if something was wrong you'd get a shout from a fellow editor nearby. I suspect that as editors get physically closer once more, those co-operative days which caught so many errors will be back.
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