Washington Post Express and Their Typo That Points to a Bigger Problem

The Washington Post Express’ cover of the Women’s March on Washington featured a colossal mistake that cannot be ignored.

Much like the rest of Washington D.C., The Post Express has obviously lost its damn mind. What makes me say that? Well, for starters, they put the male symbol over the an article about women. Unfortunately, it’s an excellent metaphor for the state of women’s rights.

But for an article meant to highlight a massive movement calling for the “protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families“, it looks stupid. Not like, ‘wow, what happened here?’ stupid, but full-fledged, ‘This is why we are where we are. Here’s an excellent example of why we need to stand up and fight for our rights.’ As a free daily newspaper, we ought to give Express some slack, but there’s no excuse for a publication of the Washington Post. Man or woman, the fact that no one caught this egregious oversight is laughable at best.

WaPo Express Screenshot

The cover of WaPo Express magazine featured the headline, “The Modest Start of a Massive March.” As you can see above, it covers the Facebook post that launched the Women’s March on Washington. Following Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, a nonviolent march on Washington will occur the following day with one simple goal:

"“In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore. The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.”"

Per the tweet sent from the official WaPo Express (It’s verified) account, “Today’a” is apparently the day for someone to drop the ball. Honestly, this was pretty much a calamity from start to finish. But because the topic is women’s rights, all those dudes at WaPo Express probably think this will blow over. Note that in their correction they don’t actually apologise.

Yes, very good WaPo. But considering that covers like this, which are not just online, but printed in full color hardcopy, have to go through, at minimum, a five layer approval process, that means this isn’t one person’s screw up. This is a screw up on every level, as the cover went under eyeballs after eyeballs (all most likely male) and no one ever stopped to say “Wait….”

Yeah it should have–but it didn’t. And every hardcopy went to press with the cover bearing the other symbol.

If the Post had more diversity on their staff, they might have noticed. Instead, the DC local paper has now fumbled a cover story on the biggest conversation, not of January or the year 2017, but every day moving forward until we get rights we deserve.

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So, yeah, here’s your official call out: Hire more women and learn to Google. (Or perhaps watch Beyonce in concert.)