The Pacino Blunder and 4 Other Goofs I Made as a Young Writer

When you’re a novice, there’s a lot to learn.

1. Who Is Al Pacino? Dumont High School, New Jersey, 1979 — senior year. A few of us were in the Periscope newspaper office after school. Adviser and journalism teacher Charles Barragato ran in, breathless. “Al Pacino is on the field!” he said. “Someone has to interview him!” I said yes, dashed down with pen and pad and saw a dark-haired man in a wheelchair, near the track. But I didn’t know Al Pacino from Adam. “Is that Al Pacino?” I asked a beefy fellow in a jacket. “If you don’t know who he is, why do you want to interview him?” the man snapped back. I stammered something. Turns out Pacino was considering the part of paraplegic Vietnam War vet Ron Kovic in “Born on the Fourth of July,” and they were scouting locations. I don’t recall what happened next. Maybe we just ran a photo and blurb. (The film came out in 1989, starring Tom Cruise.) I’m still embarrassed about this blunder. I know much more about celebrities and ordinary people now. (And we have Google, Wikipedia and IMDb — and a cell phone in every high schooler’s hand.)
2. Can you repeat that? As a timid cub reporter at The Daily Targum at Rutgers, where we used clanky typewriters and published five days a week, I attributed a famous person’s words to the source I had interviewed. That would be like giving credit for Mahatma Gandhi’s famous “Be the change” quote to University President Edward J. Bloustein. Oops. I got a letter at the newspaper office with a gentle correction. Good…