Former Journal Ad Director Dan Corrow and I used to commiserate about the tribulations of being imperfect humans in a business where imperfections are public affairs.

Dan had a sign he kept in his desk: “For Maximum Attention, Nothing Beats a Good, Big Mistake.”

That is so true. In the newspaper business, of course, it’s worse than in other businesses. A person may make a mistake at home, sigh, correct it and go on with no one else any the wiser. A businessman may make a mistake that costs him a pretty penny, but only he and his accountant will know about it.

With newspapers, however, mistakes are printed up in thousands of copies and delivered to the homes of subscribers all over town, who will sit over their morning coffee and find all the typos and misspellings. If it is a big, embarrassing one, like leaving the “L” out of “public,” you will hear about it. (I did that once, a long, long time ago, but haven’t done it since.)

Another newspaperman shared the story about a men’s clothing store owner in his town who ran an ad for his annual shirt sale. Only the ad didn’t say “shirt.” The essential “r” was left out and no one noticed, not even the store owner who had proofed the ad, until it was printed and delivered all over town.

The store owner was livid. He pounded his fist on the publisher’s desk, declared that the paper had ruined his reputation and his business and said he was going to sue it for every penny it had.

Of course, so many jokers came to his store to ask about his shi(r)t sale and wanting to buy a shi(r)t, that the businessman sold more shirts than ever before. Next year the store owner wanted to run that ad again, but the paper said no, it couldn’t make a mistake like that on purpose.

Which bring me to the Academy Awards on Sunday. It was with a fair bit of sympathy, but also “schadenfreude” (a wonderful German word that describes the joy one feels in the suffering of others) that I watched as the producers and cast of “La La Land” were handed the Best Picture Oscar, only to have it taken away in the middle of their speeches and given to the real winners, the folks who made “Moonlight.”

How many millions of people were watching that on live TV? How many big stars and celebrities were shocked and embarrassed? Best of all, as startling as the mistake was no one was hurt by it. The right people got the award in the end, and the people responsible for the mistake are scrambling to make sure it never happens again.

In the meantime “Moonlight” has been burned into our memories. I can’t remember what film won best picture last year, but I will always remember that “Moonlight” was the winner in 2017.

Mistakes are funny that way.

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Kevin Sweeney has been the managing editor of The Journal since May 1985. A native of St. Paul, he worked at newspapers in LeSueur and Albert Lea before moving to New Ulm. Contact him at ksweeney@nujournal.com.