Editors at The Spokesman-Review on Wednesday apologized to the president of Gonzaga University, appointed a task force on errors and asked a copy editor to resign.

The events occurred in the wake of a bad headline in Wednesday's newspaper calling the GU president a Nazi.

“I was embarrassed and horrified at the headline error," editor Chris Peck told the Rev. Robert Spitzer in a letter he hand-delivered to the Jesuit priest.

The headline appeared on Page B2 over a brief story about a book signing by the university president. It read: “Nazi priest promotes his book." The book has nothing to do with Nazis, and the subject was not mentioned in the text of the short article.

Spitzer said he stumbled over the headline while reading the paper early that morning.

“I thought it was at first a blooper," he said. “It's so extreme, nobody who knows me or knows of me would believe it, I don't think."

Spitzer, whose father is Jewish, said he was not personally hurt by the headline. But the usually enthusiastic and passionate priest was controlled and subdued during a brief interview Wednesday.

The GU president was interviewed by several reporters during breaks in his busy speaking schedule on Wednesday. He said he doesn't think the error will damage his relationship with the paper.

“I have gotten along with everybody there quite well," he said. “It's forgiven and forgotten. Let's get on with life."

The headline was written by Robin Moody, a 24-year-old intern copy editor. On Wednesday afternoon, she resigned from her job at the request of newspaper editors.

While the text of news stories is written by reporters, headlines are written by copy editors. Normally, after the headlines are written, other copy editors inspect the work and electronically send the pages to a typesetting machine.

The intern copy editor had been assigned to write headlines for Page B2 early Tuesday evening. The Nazi headline was intended only as filler type, Peck said, and the copy editor planned to go back and change it but never did.

Moody, a Gonzaga University graduate, was president of the women's studies club last spring that attempted to bring a speaker from Planned Parenthood to campus. Spitzer intervened and prohibited the speaker from coming.

When asked about the headline, the copy editor “said she meant no disrespect to Father Spitzer," Peck said. “She expressed great remorse that the bunk headline managed to get into print."

Later Tuesday evening, the page with the bad headline was electronically set into type without other copy editors catching the error.

“We had a whole staff of editors who should have seen something," Peck said. “Our system failed on several levels."

Peck met with the staff of the copy desk -- the editors responsible for writing headlines and laying out news pages -- to announce the formation of a task force to examine internal practices that might have led to this error and others in the paper.

In addition to offering the hand-delivered letter and personal apology, Peck made public apologies throughout the day, including at a dinner to honor priests and at Spitzer's book signing at Kaufer's Book Store.

Most of the newspaper's staff was working early into Wednesday morning covering the election, Peck said.

“While this is an explanation, it is not an excuse," he said. “There is no excuse for this type of error."

The error is expected to reverberate throughout the world of journalism.

“It is profoundly harmful, not just to the individual, but to the newspaper and to the profession of journalism," said Bob Steele, director of ethics at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

At a national newspaper industry conference two weeks ago, one of the main topics was credibility, Steele said.

“The public believes we make way too many mistakes," he said. “This reinforces that feeling that there is fracture in the checks and balance system at newspapers."

Peck agreed and said he is appointing the task force to determine how errors happen, how they can be prevented and how to handle corrections. It was a topic he was already planning to tackle as soon as the general election was over.

Steele encouraged the newspaper to name the individual responsible for the mistake, reasoning that newspapers are in the business of “naming names and holding people accountable."

“This one didn't just fall through the cracks," he said. “This one fell from 100 feet and smashed all over the floor."