My Most Public Mistake as a Writer

The call with my editor lasted only a couple of minutes. But I was sure it would end my?burgeoning?career as a journalist. How could I've let such a stupid mistake slip through? About something so obvious? My stomach was churning, and I broke into cold sweats.?Surely, it would be impossible to ever recover from this.

The day prior, I had been sent on an assignment for the local print newspaper I was freelancing for. A travelling exhibition of forged European masterpieces was in town, and I was to review it. It was a small show dominated by fake classic?Renaissance ?and?Dutch Golden Age ?artworks.?I walked through the exhibition and had a pleasant chat with the curator before returning to the office to put down my thoughts for the next day's paper.

I remember having a niggling sensation about a fact while writing but decided to push it aside without mentioning anything to my fellow journalists around me or, alas, googling?it.?I?handed the piece to my editor, who commended it for its style, structure, and clever wordplay.

Blinded by our enthusiasm and mutual respect for each other's work, we both oversaw the glaring mistake I made?not just once but three times?throughout the entire piece:?I had attributed the Mona Lisa to?Michelangelo ?instead of its actual creator,?Leonardo da Vinci .

In today's digital-first media world, it would be an easily-fixed error.?But in the early 2000s, that article appeared in print with my name next to it and was distributed to thousands of subscribers.?My family and friends were avid readers and would surely ridicule me for my ignorance. I also wrote for the edition of the local paper received and read by several big-wigs of the publishing house the paper belonged to. And while my loved ones didn't end up caring about my patchy art history knowledge, the publishing giants made sure their disapproval was heard loud and clear?— via direct phone call to my editor.?On top of it all, we received a sizeable amount of gleeful and patronizing reader mail.

In hindsight, confusing the work of two Renaissance artists may not seem like a big deal. Both Michelangelo and da Vinci were long dead when my article was published, and no one but my ego was seriously harmed. Yet,?at the time, I was sure I'd never work as a writer again. My editor would abandon me, and I'd be better off finding a rock under which my uncultured self could live.

Of course, none of these concerns turned out to be true. Instead,?dealing with the fallout of my most public failure taught me invaluable lessons about being a better writer, mentor, and (hopefully) human.

Check your facts

The first and most apparent lesson the whole episode taught me was always to check my facts.?Even when I'm sure I know the details by heart, I look for a reliable and recent resource to hyperlink.

While I love to tell engaging and entertaining stories,?my first responsibility as an online creator is to ensure that the information I share is accurate. This can be time-consuming,?but it is an essential part of my writing process?— especially since?a 2018 study ?found that fake news spreads significantly faster online than facts.

Honing in on the accuracy of my writing also means that I always learn something new.?And more often than not, the story I initially set out to tell changes becomes more nuanced in proportion to the depth of my knowledge.

Trust your gut instinct

I still remember the niggling feeling that something wasn't quite right while working on the review for the exhibition of fake masterpieces.?But I didn't act.?The piece needed to be ready by the end of the day, and I was?more focused on getting it done than getting it right.

Maybe I was also worried about asking a stupid question out loud in the office. I was young and eager to look smart.

Since then, I've?learned to trust my gut instinct.?If something feels off, I do more research or run it by someone who can help with either expertise or perspective.

Embarrassment isn't fatal

While my public writing blunder isn't the proudest moment of my career, I'm glad I made it in an innocuous context. I didn't spread false information that could harm anybody, nor did I tarnish anyone's reputation.

The worst thing that happened was that I felt embarrassed for a couple of weeks and was initially more restrained in our editorial meetings. But?embarrassment is neither fatal nor permanent.?The other writers and editors dropped the topic pretty quickly, and I got over it eventually.

These days, I share the story?whenever one of my team members?makes their first more significant mistake (it happens to everyone at some point).?It lightens the mood and puts things in perspective.?Hopefully, it also helps them to learn from the situation and move on.

It's what you do next that counts

Making mistakes is human. It's how you respond that matters.

In my case, this meant?admitting that I got it wrong and writing and publishing a correction?the following day in the paper.?It also made me reflect on why I got it wrong in the first place and develop a better research process.

Back your team up

While I was wallowing in self-pity and trying to come to terms with my inadequacies as a writer, my editor had to deal with the brunt of the fallout. As the person who approved the piece for publishing, he had to take the calls from the publishing house executives.

I am not sure if he received an official warning, but there were rumours about it. Yet, he didn't admonish me once. He simply worked with me on the correction and helped me rebuild my confidence over the coming weeks.

In hindsight,?I'm sure he shielded me from most of what was happening.?He has become?my role model for managing and leading a team member through a career crisis.?It's the time to back them up, not tear them down.

Provide feedback with kindness and humour

As mentioned, there was no shortage of reader letters and emails in response to my very own piece of fake news. None of them was anywhere near as nasty as today's average YouTube comment section, but the majority were unkind and didn't offer anything constructive.?Perhaps not surprisingly, I don't remember the detail of any of them.

There’s one reader's response I do recall, though.?Because it was poignant, funny, and put the whole situation into perspective.?It only contained this one sentence:?"Isn't it remarkable how realistically Michelangelo forged da Vinci's Mona Lisa?"