Those progressive operas

In an L.A. Times opera review, a copy editor changed "an incomparably glorious and goofy pro-life paean" to "... goofy anti-abortion paean." As you may know (if you're more cultured than I), "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" has nothing to do with abortion. The L.A. Times wrote a correction, and then corrected that correction to point out that it was not the reporter's error.

This could almost be an error orchestrated by Bill Walsh to prove why some corrections should assign blame.

Tom Mangan sums it up nicely here.

I can't imagine what the excuse was for an editor changing "pro-life" to "anti-abortion" in an opera review that had nothing to do with abortion, but whoever you are, well: Thanks for all your help.

A thread has started on Testy Copy Editors here.

A Romenesko Letters writer rails againts such search-and-replace mentality:

I remember something from a while back about automatic word-replacement done by an newspaper editor that, and this is approximation, changed "the company was awash in red ink but now is in the black" to "the company was awash in red ink but now is in the African-American."

LAT's anti-abortion opera [L.A. Observed]
Correction [L.A. Times]
Correction's correction [L.A. Times]