Making people uncomfortable is education’s job

By Rick MacLean. “Oh no,” he asked. “Did I get fired?”
I smiled.
“You did,” I said as I reached for the Sharpie fine point marker with the red ink I reserve for such special occasions.
“FIRED,” I wrote on the story the student had, no doubt, worked on so industriously.
His crime? He’d spelled a name wrong. In my business, a reporter who gets a name wrong doesn’t have much of a future punching computer keys. If you get the name wrong, what else is wrong in your story?
The student took the piece of paper, turned and left my office. Just outside my door he held it aloft. More...