Everyone makes mistakes, including newspaper reporters and editors, and readers aren't at all hesitant to point them out — which is actually quite helpful.
Once upon a time, the Star reported in a Thursday edition that there would be a lunar eclipse that evening. The eclipse had happened the evening before the article appeared. How embarrassing!
The Star managed to make lemonade from this lemon and had a little fun with its mistake.
From the Arizona Daily Star, Friday, March 13, 1914:
Why Diana Refused an Encore
__________
Declined to Repeat Eclipse, Despite the Fact that Second Performance Was Advertised in Tucson Newspaper, but Cheer Up, Evelyn Thaw Is Coming
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Notwithstanding the announcement made locally yesterday and given wide circulation that the moon would kindly repeat the eclipse of Wednesday night last evening, would-be spectators of the advertised eclipse were quite unable to discover that the inconstant and variable moon had consented to respond to the encore of Tucson eclipse lovers, so that it could be noticed.
As a matter of fact, it is a very uncommon thing for the moon or any other celestial body to repeat an eclipse, even out of courtesy for its admirers. At least that is what Dr. Douglas, professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, said last evening, and he probably knows as much as anybody else around Tucson about eclipses. He said that the announcement of the fact that the moon would repeat the eclipse again was quite a surprise to him. He was ready to centure the prediction, indeed, that the advertised eclipse would not occur, even though it would be quite a disappointment to many people in Tucson.
Notwithstanding the confidence with which the return engagement of the eclipse of the moon was announced in Tucson, it would have caused an awful mess if the moon had listened to any of the pleas from Tucson and pulled off the event again. A number of astronomers in various parts of the world would have lost their jobs and it would have destroyed human faith in the continuity of nature and all that sort of thing, and raised Cain generally. The astronomers had confidently predicted that the eclipse would only play to a one-night stand in Tucson, just like most of the other stars who pass through do, and for the man in the moon to turn around and suddenly play a return date the next night would have thrown all their calculations into chaos.
So, while the failure of the moon to repeat the eclipse stunt in Tucson last evening may have been quite a disappointment on the whole, it is better thus. It would have been a great newspaper scoop, no doubt, and it would have put Tucson on the map for sure to have had two showings of the eclipse, but, taken altogether, it seems for the best. While Maine has gone Democratic and Kentucky has turned Republican a few times of late, it is not likely that the sun will start rising in the west just yet, or that the moon will stage a return date of an eclipse just for Tucson.
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The mention of Evelyn Thaw in the second headline refers to a performer who would soon be in Tucson.
Of course, all of this was just a roundabout way of saying, "Oops, we ran that notice of the eclipse a day late."
We must all learn to laugh at ourselves once in a while.
