Virginia newspaper apologizes for printing f-word in kid’s section

This week, kids, we have a lesson in copy editing.

A Virginia newspaper's editors let slip an error in Monday's edition and it wasn't just any old typo — The Staunton News Leader printed an expletive in a caption in the Kid's Corner section.

Journalist Jim Romenesko pointed out the error, which may have introduced kids to a choice new word while they doodled with coloured pencils.

"If you're a f*&#@!* idiot, it can be fun to refer to your draft site as "the war room," the bizarre caption said.

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The caption makes no sense, in addition to being age inappropriate, and it appears to originate from a story about fantasy football in the satirical newspaper the Onion.

The News Leader apologized for the mistake, saying it originated from a third-party it hires to lay out the weather pages, Accuweather.com.

"The language was not caught by our editors and made it into print," the post by executive editor David Fritz says.

"First of all, we apologize for this getting into the newspaper. Secondly, we'll be working internally and with our vendor to make certain that there's no repeat."

Gawker speculates the mistake is either a bad joke by an angry staffer or someone who made a poor choice for placeholder text, and then forgot to change it.