Making a django blog: says database column is missing when 'sql' shows the column exists

here is the error in question:

I've run syncdb and restarted the server.

The "sql" command shows what SQL would be run by syncdb, not what columns actually exist currently in the table; double-check the column existence in a DB tool.

syncdb won't add columns to existing tables, only create brand new ones. You'll want to look at a project like South http://south.aeracode.org/ to manage adding comlumns (or run the alter table add column manually.)