A daily newspaper has apologised to its readers after it carried a front page rogues’ gallery – without most of the rogues’ faces on show.

Page one of The Star highlighted the case of 12 Sheffield Wednesday football supporters who had attacked a group Leeds United fans returning from a day at York races on a train last July.

The 12 men were collectively sentenced at Leeds Crown Court to nearly 30 years in prison and the Johnston Press-owned title reported the story with a powerful front page headlined ‘TRAIN BRAWL YOBS CAGED’.

But due to an error in the production process only the top left quarter of each of the thugs’ faces could be seen by readers.

An explanatory message was posted at the bottom of the online version of the story on thestar.co.uk.

It said: “Due to a production error the photographs on the front page of today’s Star have corrupted. We apologise for this error.”

Star acting editor John Furbisher had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

The Star’s front page from 1 April and how it should have looked below.

Comments

IJ (08/04/2010 09:19:33)
Ouch. That’s a nightmare, but what a case of ‘there but for the grace of God…’
I’m not really surprised John Furbisher declined to comment – it’s one of those horrible problems you wouldn’t have had a clue about until the paper landed on your desk. I suspect he’d had half of his readership on the phone pointing it out to him already.

All Subbed Out (08/04/2010 09:32:15)
Err, did not one one person in the printroom or distribution think to query how odd it looked when the very first copies rolled off the press?

Scribbler (08/04/2010 09:37:00)
Presumably Atex was partly responsible for this – in 30 years in local newspapers I have never seen such a front page foul-up.
Either the system doesn’t work, people haven’t been properly trained or there are not enough checks in place to make sure problems like this don’t happen.
Whatever the case, it doesn’t spell good news at a time when local newspapers are fighting for survival and trying to maintain credibility in the face of job cuts and pay freezes.

Onlooker (08/04/2010 09:44:55)
If someone in the press room has not been sacked I would be asking the question – why?
This has happened to us all but for a front page to leave a press room in such a manner is totally unacceptable.

Lily (08/04/2010 09:54:42)
Scribbler…Atex had nothing to do with this. Its human error…either someone messed up or someone just didn’t give a monkeys…simple as that. Don’t blame the technology…its a pathetic excuse and allows those truly at fault to avoid their responsibilities.

AJinexile (08/04/2010 10:05:07)
Lily summed it up well “someone just didn’t give a monkeys” Heads should roll, and not just part of them.

prionmonkey (08/04/2010 10:15:47)
This is an Atex problem. The same thing happened to a spread we were working on. We managed to correct it after a lot of effort.
The picture import system is faulty, the editorial relocation tool is a disaster, the In design aspect is clumsy and over complicated, and the whole system is slow due to there not being enough servers.
JP have not got a clue. The were sold a pup with the Miles System they have been sold a pup with this rubbish.

JP executive (08/04/2010 10:17:17)
Blaming the press boys is ridiculous because quite often pages are blocked out for legal reasons etc. They might have thought that was the case. At the Star they obviously have no mechanism for the production editor to see the front page before it goes to the printers. If you strip away the layers of protection against mistakes this kind of thing happens

Stonehand (08/04/2010 10:24:54)
Gobsmacked…and it would happen on April 1, wouldn’t it?? But still a cracking page and a cracking story and completely justified to run it again properly the next day on p2 or p5. If they didn’t do that, they want their backsides kicking. After the printers have had their punishment.

Matt (08/04/2010 11:05:41)
Make no mistake, Atex is to blame. And let’s face it, we all knew things like this would happen. The senior management didn’t, but then again, what do they know about newspapers? Nothing. Anyway, on the page planner, pictures can look fine. Then, when you pick up the paper, they come out cropped. Similarly, on the page planner, headlines can look fine. Then, when you pick up the paper, they come out bust. I could go on and on and on about the failures of Atex. I’m just waiting for a legal error which will cost the company more than this horrific system.

Casualty (08/04/2010 13:12:41)
JP is not bothered about quality or being sued. The only thing that matters is cutting costs – Oh yes, and the £1m salary increase the directors paid themselves.

Spongebob (08/04/2010 13:51:07)
Blaming Atex is lazy. It’s human error. Someone, somewhere should’ve seen this.
Just how many of you moaning commenters have even seen Atex, I wonder?

JP worker (08/04/2010 14:04:26)
SpongeBob – there are several comments from people who work with Atex – we have had similar picture problems with the Atex system – and sometimes we’ve had page which look fine on screen but the pictures are distorted when the page is printed – and some have gone into the paper. But somebody at the press should have noticed an issue so big on a front page.

Ess Jayar (08/04/2010 15:05:58)
Yes, the Atex tour of destruction continues, concentrating on the removal of good subs and best subbing practice in order to meet the demands of the banks instead of surpass those of the reader.
Interestingly, the JP mantra for working with Atex is (get it)’right first time’ but, as this story shows, the result is all too often something that merely rhymes.

FAST WOMAN (08/04/2010 15:06:09)
Cool heads. Never has the ‘honour’ of working on Atex, but this is clearly a techie issue that needs to be fixed fast.
Atex suppliers, in-house IT people and tech-savvy journalists should be searching the bowels of the system until the glitch is found and sorted.
It’s clearly not a one-off.
Sometimes with pictures it’s a simple fix between RGB to CMYK transfer. I’m taking it that the ‘how it should have looked’ above, is an editorial proof run out on a printer that can correctly format what’s sent to it, while the send to pre-press, or on to press part, has a fault. Pity it doesnt alert the sender.
Since the days when an inkie marched to the editor’s office to say ‘Oi, is this supposed to look like THIS?’ are long gone, there’s also a management issue to be handled until the glitch is fixed.
It means someone has to be at the press to check copies and ring the alarm bells for a ‘replate’ if necessary to avoid thousands of similar fiascos piling up in print room cages.

Onlooker (08/04/2010 16:40:19)
My source from within JP says that the pix facility of the Atex system is the flakiest part. The boffins are working hard to cure the problems.
I have had experience of some of Atex’s previous efforts, particularly the abysmal EdPage – its pre-Quark and InDesign DTP solution. What a waste of money!

Wolfie (09/04/2010 08:47:32)
Those who choose not to blame Atex have obviously never worked with it and making sweeping statements like “human error to blame” is unhelpful unless of course these people are really JP management pushing their propaganda. Hmmmm

Wolfie (09/04/2010 08:49:53)
And as for “John Furbisher declined to comment” how unusual not – on JP stories how often is it said Johnston P
ress declined to comment? Why should he be any different?

JP Sub (09/04/2010 09:14:33)
This is totally and utterly an Atex problem. It’s happened to me before but I had no idea until the paper came out as on the page planner it looked fine.
The company don’t care, but if this kind of thing keeps happening they’ll soon know about it.
I have absolute sympathy for the Star editor, and while it shouldn’t have got as far as the news stands in this state, I can understand how it did.

Johnston Press Employee (09/04/2010 09:20:57)
Picture the scene…Managing Director (sitting in barely-used office, scratching head wondering “what does a sub do?” while booking the next long holiday abroad)…So, what will be solution to this hideous mess? “Um, let’s get rid of more staff, lose all the subs we have and send all the reporters on some intensive Atex training.” They just don’t get it, do they?

F.Johnston (09/04/2010 09:53:42)
Press in back of beyond, running 24 hours a day to very tight print slots and crewed by a very small number of humans and a lot of robots, computers and automated machinery. Inevitable.

Fred (19/05/2010 11:43:27)
Ahem, if the Atex software were fair and square to blame, don’t you think we’d see this more often?
As usual, it’s a lack of care and checking that’s led to this error, and as usual the moaners pin the blame on the ‘evil’ system in the corner.
Wake up! It’s management, with their hurried implementation of complex and bespoke software system that have caused this.