To our print readers:
This morning’s Virginian-Pilot Sports front featured a horrible error. We accidentally reversed the score of the Super Bowl.
We’re embarrassed, and we apologize to all our readers, especially Saints fans.
To see and print a copy of the corrected page, download these PDF files: high resolution, 28 MB | low resolution, 3 MB.
Also, a new version is available for purchase through Pictopia. Link
You rarely see a paper admit to making a “horrible” error. It’s horrible when you falsely accuse someone of something that damages their reputation, or confuse a victim with their killer or… well, the list goes on. Getting the score of the Super Bowl wrong is embarrassing — but it’s not horrible. A little perspective, please. Oh, and maybe ditch the sales pitch next time.
Thanks, Deann!
By Craig Silverman
on February 8th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged apologies, crunks10, numerical errors, virginian-pilot
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The Feb 1 story headlined “Backdoor taxes to hit middle class” is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration’s budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story. Link
More background from Gawker and Reuters’ Good, Bad and Ugly blog.
By Craig Silverman
on February 8th, 2010 in Major Errors, Wire service
Tagged crunks10, retractions, reuters
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Acting on a reader tip, Slate’s Jack Shafer busted the Daily Beast’s Gerald Posner for lifting from the Miami Herald:
Veteran journalist Gerald Posner acknowledged today that he copied five sentences from a Miami Herald article this week for a piece he wrote for the Daily Beast. The Daily Beast appended an editor’s note to the beginning of Posner’s piece today, explaining that the copying was “inadvertent” and that the Daily Beast has deleted the copied passages …
When asked whether what Posner did was plagiarism, Daily Beast Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal didn’t dodge. Reading aloud from the definition of plagiarism on Dictionary.com—”the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work”—he agreed that that’s what Posner did. “Yeah, you’d have to say it’s plagiarism,” he said. “I do believe it was inadvertent.”
Posner, the Daily Beast’s chief investigative reporter, didn’t make any excuses, either. And he made no effort to escape the P-word, which writers caught stealing copy usually do.
Stating that he was “horrified” at what he did, Posner agreed that it constitutes plagiarism. But he couldn’t figure out how he did it.
He said he had no memory of having seen the Herald story, describing himself as “absolutely sure” he did not see it before sending his own story to Beast editors. But that memory must be wrong, he said, because the similarities between the two pieces are too great, and the Herald’s story was posted before he e-mailed his to his editors at 2:03 a.m. on Feb. 2.
Here’s the editor’s note:
Editor’s Note: In an earlier version of this article, five sentences were inadvertently copied from a Miami Herald report without attribution. The Daily Beast has removed the sentences and regrets the error.
Update Feb. 8: Shafer kept digging and turned up more examples of plagiarism by Posner. As a result, Posner has been suspended from the Daily Beast. From Shafer’s column:
Slate reader Gregory Gelembuik and I have uncovered additional examples of plagiarism by Posner in the Daily Beast from the Texas Lawyer, a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, a Miami Herald article, and a health care journalism blog.
Beast executive editor Edward Felsenthal told Shafer that, “We will be suspending Gerald Posner while we review his articles, to return if we are satisfied that he has taken the necessary steps to avoid this in the future.”
Posner also issued a statement:
… I now realize that a method of compiling information that I have used successfully since 1984 on book research, obviously does not work in a failsafe manner at the warp speed of the net. Some of the incidents raised by Jack Shafer are not plagiarism, but are instances in which I received the same exact prepared quotation or statement from a police officer or press agent as other reporters. But others are mistakes that I deeply regret.
By Craig Silverman
on February 5th, 2010 in Major Errors, Online, Plagiarism
Tagged daily beast, miami herlad, Plagiarism
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THE picture of Randy Jackson shows the judge from American Idol and not Randy Jackson the brother of Michael. (First edition only – corrected in later editions, page 15, February 2).
By Craig Silverman
on February 5th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged mirror uk, misidentifications, photo errors
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In a package of stories about a US plan to put missile batteries in four Gulf countries as a defence against Iran, a summary box said that Patriot missiles stationed in Saudi Arabia in 1991 during the Kuwait war had a 70% success rate against incoming Iraqi Scud missiles, and those in Israel had a 40% success rate. We should have noted that these figures – cited in a promotional document from the Patriot’s maker, Raytheon, and originating from the US army – have been widely challenged (Missile defence, 1 February, page 5).
In a compilation of reactions to Tony Blair’s appearance before the Iraq inquiry one comment said: ”Current UN estimates are of 5 million Iraqi orphans, holding the UK and the US responsible.” This would mean about 18% of Iraq’s 28 million people are orphans. The UN has issued no such estimate; many statistics covering Iraqis affected by the 2003 invasion and its aftermath are in dispute, with the conflict itself making methodical studies difficult. The 5 million figure is the highest of a range of estimates to have emanated from Iraqi officials or government bodies since 2007-2008 (Experts analyse Blair’s performance, 30 January, page 7). Link to both
By Craig Silverman
on February 5th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged guardian, numerical errors
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Although the General Medical Council found that Professors Simon Murch and John Walker-Smith, former colleagues of Andrew Wakefield, had failed in their duties as responsible consultants such that they continue to face charges of serious professional misconduct (“Fall of ‘dishonest’ doctor who started MMR scare”, January 29), it did not find them dishonest or, in the case of Professor Murch, irresponsible, contrary to our report. We were also wrong to say (“The men who started the scare”, same day) that they had not retracted the claim that MMR could be linked to health problems; they did so in The Lancet in 2004. We apologise for the errors. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 5th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged apologies, inaccurate accusations, times uk
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A letter to the editor that we published Wednesday, “Obama’s speech” submitted by Ron Gardner of Atwater, has been removed from our Web site. The letter was taken almost word for word from a column, “State of the Union: Obama v. Constitution,” by Mark Alexander on the Web site, The Patriot Post.
Letters to the editor should contain the writer’s own thoughts in the writer’s own words. Otherwise, it is plagiarism, which is unacceptable.
– Keith A. Jones, editorial page editor Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 5th, 2010 in Newspapers, Plagiarism
Tagged merced sun-star, Plagiarism
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A story on Page 1 of Tuesday’s Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was “off the record.” However, the explanation about the talk being “off the record” was, it turns out, also “off the record” and should not have been quoted. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 4th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged crunks10, nashua telegraph
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In our article, ‘Police called to Gaddafi’s son’s hotel room after staff hear screams’ ( 31 December 2009), we referred to Moutassim Gaddafi as the son involved in the incident. In fact, it was another of Colonel Gaddafi’s sons, Muammar Gaddafi, who was involved. We apologise to Dr Muatasm Gaddafi for our mistake. Link
Gawker’s Gaddafi correction was much more colorful.
By Craig Silverman
on February 4th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged independent uk
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Because of an editing error, an article on Saturday about J. D. Salinger’s last known address in New York City, 300 East 57th Street, misspelled the surname of his best-known literary character. He is Holden Caulfield, not Caufield. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 3rd, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged naming errors, new york times
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The headline `Table for two in an empty Mr. Chow”on the front of Sunday’s Tropical Life may have been misleading. The South Beach restaurant is open evenings only and was empty only during an afternoon interview with Eva Chow. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 3rd, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged headline errors, miami herald
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In the original version of this story we said that 10 million Finns died under Lenin in the 1917 civil war. The correct figure is 37,000. We regret the error. Link
The above is a hard-fought correction. The magazine, a Canadian weekly, initially published a letter pointing out the mistake, but declined to issue a correction. Carol Wainio, who has been spotting errors in Canadian media for a while, stayed on the case and was recently rewarded with a correction. It also helped that a Finnish paper mocked Maclean’s for its mistake.
By Craig Silverman
on February 2nd, 2010 in Magazines
Tagged delayed corrections, maclean's, numerical errors
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An article on Saturday about the court appearance of Lynn Fiebig stated that Alexander Fiebig and Richard Chittock received payment from the false invoices involved. That was wrong. The Dominion Post accepts that none of the payments involved relating to the false invoices was made to either Alexander Fiebig or Richard Chittock and apologises for this error.
By Craig Silverman
on February 2nd, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged apologies, dominion post
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In the Jan. 26 “Human Nature” on the importance of computers, William Saletan noted that in the week after Haiti’s earthquake, a campaign for $10 text-message donations to the Red Cross raised $25 million. Relying on his own brain, Saletan then calculated the number of responses as 250,000. He should have used a computer. The correct numbers is 2.5 million. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 1st, 2010 in Online
Tagged numerical errors, slate
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A Jan. 29 caption with a photo of the Howard Johnson hotel on Metropolitan Rd. in Scarborough provided an incorrect price for the cost of the room. As was correctly stated in the article about a list of Toronto’s “dirtiest hotels” a room at that hotel costs $89. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 1st, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged numerical errors, toronto star
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We lamented that some skiers fail to pull a “chord” to inflate their avalanche airbag systems, a circumstance that could be explained by their being tone-deaf, we suppose (16 January, p 15). Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 1st, 2010 in Magazines
Tagged new scientist, typos
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A story in the Play section Thursday about Transistor, an eclectic shop and hangout in Chicago, had several errors. The shop does not sell custom-crafted guitar pedals. The customer who said Transistor “is entrepreneurial, artistic activism” was incorrectly identified; the speaker was Joe Shanahan. The shop was not inspired by a visit to Berlin. And a photo caption incorrectly identified a light fixture as circa 1960s; the fixture is actually a contemporary work. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 1st, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged chicago tribune, multiple errors
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A Jan. 14 Style article on Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s 2008 remarks about Barack Obama, and how comments about race are received differently depending on the race of the speaker, incorrectly described Bill Clinton as trying to persuade Edward M. Kennedy to support Obama for president. Clinton was actually trying to persuade Kennedy not to back Obama when, according to the book “Game Change,” he said, “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” The word “not” was inadvertently omitted from the article’s description of Clinton urging Kennedy not to support Obama. Link
By Craig Silverman
on February 1st, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged washington post
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A Jan. 27 Page One article misstated the nature of the charges recently filed against four men including James O’Keefe, the conservative activist who gained notice last year with undercover videos that he and an associate recorded at regional offices of the group ACORN. The men are accused of plotting to tamper with a telephone in the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), not of plotting to wiretap or bug that office. The error was repeated in the article’s headlines and photo caption. The article also incorrectly said that Landrieu in July proposed Stephanie A. Finley as a replacement for William J. Flanagan, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, who is the father of Robert Flanagan, one of the other men charged. Landrieu proposed that Finley become the U.S. attorney, but William Flanagan was not the acting U.S. attorney at the time. As the article stated, President Obama nominated Finley for the job last week. Link
By Craig Silverman
on January 29th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged washington post
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We apologise to the staff and pupils of Kilkenny College, a boarding school in south-east Ireland, for mistakenly identifying it as a school that Saoirse Ronan left because teachers and students were giving her a hard time (A name to reckon with, 23 January, page 16, Weekend). Contrary to what we stated, Saoirse Ronan was never a student at Kilkenny College. We accept that Kilkenny College guards the interests of its pupils and regret any implication to the contrary. Link
By Craig Silverman
on January 29th, 2010 in Uncategorized
Tagged apologies, guardian
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On Monday last, under the headline “Saoirse: Pupils weren’t Lovely to me”, we reported remarks attributed to actor Saoirse Ronan concerning her experience at school in which it was stated that pupils, teachers and staff at school gave her a hard time.
We identified the school wrongly as being Kilkenny College.
We acknowledge that, contrary to our report, Saoirse Ronan is not a pupil of Kilkenny College and has never enrolled as a pupil or attended classes there.
We accept that the remarks were not made concerning any teacher, staff-member or pupil at Kilkenny College and we apologise to them for associating them with this story and for any upset or embarrassment caused as a result.
We accept that Kilkenny College is an educational institution which guards the interests of all its pupils with care and we withdraw any suggestion to the contrary in our report.
We are happy to correct the position.
By Craig Silverman
on January 28th, 2010 in Major Errors, Newspapers
Tagged mirror uk
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The Jan. 25 article “Is the President Panicking” originally stated that Fox News led the charge against Bill Clinton in the ‘94 midterm elections. Fox News did not come into being until 1996. The story has been corrected. Link
By Craig Silverman
on January 28th, 2010 in Online
Tagged salon
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In the Sunday Morning Post two days ago, we reported the death of Malaysia’s former king Sultan Iskandar Ismail. However, the accompanying picture was of King Syed Sirajuddin, who ruled between 2001 and 2006 and who is still alive. We apologise for the error and any misunderstanding it caused.
By Craig Silverman
on January 27th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged misidentifications, photo errors, south china morning post
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A misreading of a Department of Water Resources Web site led to a whopper of an error in Monday’s front-page story on the current storm. Since the beginning of the year, water levels at Lake Oroville have risen a bit more than 15 feet. Link
So the error was big enough to deem a whopper, yet not important enough to explain?
By Craig Silverman
on January 27th, 2010 in Newspapers
Tagged incomplete corrections, oroville mercury-register
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In a Jan. 25 story about a study of the gender gap in college enrollment and undergraduate degrees, The Associated Press reported erroneously that more men are attending college and graduating with a bachelor’s degree, reversing the tendency of women to outnumber men and outperform them academically. The study found that the gender gap has stopped widening. Link
By Craig Silverman
on January 27th, 2010 in Wire service
Tagged associated press
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