IF you just wish hard enough, on a burning pile of AIDS...

Yes, well. It's been two weeks and a half since my last confession.
Father, I must admit, I did indeed spell the names of the deceased and her mother incorrectly. And yes, it did go to print in My Daily Newspaper. And the family's pain may have multiplied because of my foolishness.
But am I to be fired for this crime? Am I to be let loose, after 18 months of tireless Saturday work, or treated like a criminal?

Listen up, you young pups. I've been working at newspapers for 10 years this year. I don't fuck up out of the blue. And I will not become part of a managing editor's plan to "clean up" his newsroom by firing everyone who makes more than $27,000 a year. Not that I make anything near that...

That's basically the situation, though. Last week, I fucked up the name of one of the young girls who died in a severe all-terrain vehicle accident out here, and the name of the other girl's mother, in a story about the funeral of one of the girls. The media was asked to stay away, so we went anyway. It was one of the saddest funerals I've ever been to. The piece I wrote... let me find it. "Hundreds mourn 'brightest light'". Search it in infomart. My lede has been replaced by a tacked-in correction. So my fuck-up is permanent. But it doesn't mention that that article is the first time that someone spelled the name of the other dead girl correctly. Nor does it mention that I went to the scene of the accident, completely out of the way, to see if there was anything there for my story. There was. It's called "atmosphere." The Daily Newspaper don't usually concern itself with it. The copy editor read my little bit of "atmosphere," labeled it "the birds chirping part" and cut it out immediately. I don't think it mentioned birds.

Copy editors at that newspaper are a little bit of a misnomer. They obviously don't edit copy, since they had my story at least four hours before deadline. They couldn't note that the name of that girl was spelled wrong, even though the newspaper had been entirely FILLED with news about that accident fat he past week, with up to 4 pages of coverage at times. Something slipped there. I know it should have been spelled right in the first place, but they're supposed to be able to catch things like that. And the mother's name was just wrong. My fault. No question.

But is this a firing offence? Should I be removed?

And, within the bigger picture, bigger questions:
Do I even LIKE writing for newspapers? Not really. Not for news, anyway.
Do I want a career likely to kill me of a heart attack and leave me divorced, or better yet, unmarried? Not really.
Do I like using the internet at the library? I don't know. It might be worth it to get the internet at home, since these punk kids think it's damn funny to shoot a kid beside me in the face with an elastic.

I need a job, too. If anyone sees anything nice, let me know, too. I'm not picky. Just unemployed.