So, very, very hurt!

A little while ago, this column claimed credit for the fact that sub-editors at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald had finally – after a MGH campaign that lasted for some years – listened to us and applied some old fashioned journo logic and commonsense to how they folio (number) any edition’s pages.

That’s right. For a few weeks now over the silly season, those subs got the page numbers right and stories that were carried over from any edition’s page 3 were said to have come from ….page 3! Not from the front page or page 1! From page 3!!! What a breakthrough for accuracy in our once-wonderful craft!

Until today, that is. At top is today’s SMH page 1 (at left) and page 3 (right). It’s how editions of that daily masthead are, more often than not, numbered with a wraparound, more often than not from Hardly Normal.

And when that happens – as the MGH has pointed out endlessly over many months – the page 1 on the left above IS the edition’s cover page. Its front page. The pretend front page on page 3 is NOT the cover page.

Sadly, today, our subs have reverted to old – and totally incorrect – habits of telling us that two stories continued inside from page 3 originated …. wait for it! … “From Front Page”!

Yes, after just a short outbreak of professionalism and the application of some old-fashioned logic, very bad habits have returned to the Herald subs desk. Our campaign to educate the subeditors at the Heralds clearly needs to resume in earnest.

So, obviously once more – and certainly far from the last time, sadly – one more reminder for the unprofessional or just plain lazy subs who plonk their slack arses down for a shift and can’t be bothered to make sure where any edition’s folios start from: Page 3 of a newspaper can never – EVER! – be the front page. The bitter, old, washed-up hacks who compile this column are fairly confident that in the history of the printed newspaper page 3 has NEVER been called the front page. Simples, right. But not for Herald subs.

Editor’s note: Can we be perfectly honest here as we always strive to be and say that we never, ever, really thought that those in charge at the Herald mastheads would ever listen to us. No one listens to us. We also knew, however, that it wouldn’t be very long before they reverted to bad habits and at least we were right about that.

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