Roman Polanski arrest coverage and that pesky send key

AP Photo/Michel Euler, File

In the frenzy to cover the story of director Roman Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland, the Associated Press made an Internet boo-boo. Dan Frommer of the Silicon Alley Insider reported that on Forbes.com, readers received an insider’s view of how the news world works because the internal notes about the story appeared on the Web site instead of the Polanski story itself. That pesky send key strikes again.

The notes—which say things like “OK, can you do some more probing? New York will want to know,” “thx brad. aptn is aware, but unfortunately won't make it in time, but is hoping to catch tail end,” and “no surprise, new york is really hot on this”—are another reminder of why it’s so important to look over everything you write before you hit the send key. Although there was nothing wrong with the communication itself, it was clearly not meant for our eyes and someone dropped the ball in a very public way.

These kinds of faux pas are especially true in e-mail communication, says Janis Fisher Chan, author of E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide.

“Careless mistakes seldom happened when people wrote letters and put them in envelopes because you look at a letter before you send it,” she told me a few months ago, when we discussed the infamous “Don’t Call Me Liz” e-mail incident. “People don’t do that with e-mail. They don’t even look at it or think about it—they just let their fingers do the talking and their brains are not engaged.”

Although the Associated Press mistake was not in e-mail, it still illustrates why we should all meticulously proofread any kind of Internet communication to ensure that we are not giving people access to messages that may in some way embarrass us or our organizations.

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E-mail etiquette and the mailboxes of Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, and Elizabeth Becton
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Mark Sanford: Sex, lies, and crisis communication
E-mail etiquette lesson: Accountant fired for using all caps

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