"If any sort of error is inexcusable, it's an incorrect phone number. One of the cardinal rules of copy editing is that every phone number published must be checked"
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Nothing exposes the fantasy of editorial perfection faster than a wrong phone number. Bill Walsh isn’t just nitpicking a detail; he’s drawing a bright line between errors that merely irritate and errors that actively harm. A typo in a name can be embarrassing, a misplaced comma can be pedantic fodder, but an incorrect number weaponizes sloppiness: it sends readers into the world to bother a stranger, miss a deadline, or fail to reach help. The mistake doesn’t sit on the page. It ricochets.
Walsh’s intent is disciplinary, almost moral. By calling it “inexcusable” and a “cardinal rule,” he frames copy editing less as aesthetic tidying and more as public safety. The subtext is an editor’s quiet resentment toward newsroom cultures that treat fact-checking as optional when the clock is loud. Phone numbers are the clearest test because they’re binary: either you reach the intended person or you don’t. No interpretive wiggle room, no “style choice,” no plausible deniability.
The context matters: Walsh comes out of a print-to-digital era where corrections are both easier and more visible, and where audience trust is frayed by constant micro-failures. Checking every number is a small ritual of accountability. It signals that a publication understands its job isn’t only to inform, but to connect readers to the real-world systems it points at. In that sense, the phone number becomes a proxy for credibility itself: if you can’t be right about the digits, why should anyone believe the sentences?
Walsh’s intent is disciplinary, almost moral. By calling it “inexcusable” and a “cardinal rule,” he frames copy editing less as aesthetic tidying and more as public safety. The subtext is an editor’s quiet resentment toward newsroom cultures that treat fact-checking as optional when the clock is loud. Phone numbers are the clearest test because they’re binary: either you reach the intended person or you don’t. No interpretive wiggle room, no “style choice,” no plausible deniability.
The context matters: Walsh comes out of a print-to-digital era where corrections are both easier and more visible, and where audience trust is frayed by constant micro-failures. Checking every number is a small ritual of accountability. It signals that a publication understands its job isn’t only to inform, but to connect readers to the real-world systems it points at. In that sense, the phone number becomes a proxy for credibility itself: if you can’t be right about the digits, why should anyone believe the sentences?
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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