Strange News: Peculiar Items from the Newspaper
Many years ago, when the news of the world arrived daily on printed paper, I would occasionally tear out bizarre little articles and strange errors. A few of my favorites have been scanned and linked for posterity.
How World War II Started
This was printed in the Chicago Tribune, in the section on "This Day in History." I called them and pointed out that there was, ummm, a slight error here. They never issued a correction. Go figure. Take a look and see if you can spot the problem...
Somebody Gets Fired
From the Chicago Sun-Times. All I can say is, if that's what he was, he bloody well ought to have been fired.
Thus We Remember Him
Another beauty from the Tribune. This was, in effect, a front-page obituary. And notice the kind words with which they open this article... I sure as hell hope the same person doesn't write my obituary.
Poor, Persecuted Ollie
This ad ran in the Chicago Trib in 1988. Looking back from 2025, it's a harbinger of the absurd narrative about persecuted conservatives that would change the landscape of American politics in later years.
Ripping Them A New...
This one is a beauty from the Web, and not an old-fashioned newspaper. It's not a mistake, exactly, but it does kinda look like they left out the last word of the headline.
A couple other things deserve mentioning here: an article from the Chicago Tribune on June 6, 1989, about "blunders," noted another paper's screwup: "In 1980, for example, the Boston Globe botched, rather spectacularly, an editorial about an anti-inflation speech by President Jimmy Carter. An editorial writer, apparently just making a joke for the benefit of his colleagues, stuck a headline on it that said, 'Mush from the Wimp.' It made it into the paper." Aware that they might be casting stones from their glass house, the Trib's writer closed the article by noting that "every loyal Tribune reader has fond memories of the paper's careful scrutiny of the presidency of Thomas E. Dewey."
Another nifty story: On June 20, 1990, an Associated Press article stated that "Iran has asked Turkey to halt screenings of the movie, 'The Naked Gun' because it mocks the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini... The Turkish government is considering the matter, the official said, and may try to delete the brief segment lampooning Khomeini... The Iranian News Agency IRNA reported that the Turkish charge d'affairs in Tehran was summoned to the Foreign Ministry Tuesday and informed of Iran's unhappiness with the film... in one comedy scene, [Leslie Nielson] punches a character resembling Khomeini and reveals a spiked punk hairdo under his turban. Spokesmen for the five theatres showing 'The Naked Gun' in Istanbul said they received anonymous phone calls threatening attacks against the cinemas." Perhaps they framed OJ Simpson for murder as retribution for his role in the film?