In 2012, a web editor at the US sports media company ESPN was fired for a headline. On a story about the basketball player Jeremy Lin, who is of Chinese descent, Anthony Federico wrote the headline “Chink in the Armor”. It was meant to express a point about Lin’s rare poor performance – but it was interpreted as a racial slur, and went viral. When Federico realised how the headline could be misread, he threw up, he told John Ourand of Sports Business Journal. Press started showing up at his house. That time was “Very dark. Very depressed. The worst month of my life.” Shortly afterwards, he started going to Mass and reconnected with his faith. And he began to feel a calling to the priesthood. In June, he was ordained. His blunder looks different in retrospect, Fr Federico says. “This was the way God used to get my attention – his plan for my life.”