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While you’re here, please consider purchasing a copy of the Regret the Error book, which won an award for media criticism from the National Press Club, and also contains hundreds of hilarious corrections. You can learn more about the book and read some reviews here. The paperback edition, which includes a new introduction, came out earlier this year.
Trend of the Year: Calling Bullshit (aka Fact Checking)
Perhaps that’s not the most polite way of putting it, but fact checking continues to emerge as a favorite practice of the public and certain elements of the press. (Though most of us in the press spend more time calling bullshit on each other than checking our own work.) In a recent column for Columbia Journalism Review, I stated that fact checking “is becoming one of the great American pastimes of the Internet age.”
Everybody loves to call bullshit. Thanks to the Internet, it’s easier than ever before.
The irony is that this trend emerges at a time when professional fact checkers, who traditionally worked at magazines, are being laid off. As a result, it appears as though the future of fact checking is in open, public and participatory systems and organizations, rather than the closed, professional systems traditionally used by large magazines. The Internet has made this shift possible.
Here’s a selection of fact checking-related news from the past year:
- Even before Sarah Palin’s book was released, the Associated Press engaged in a significant internal effort to identify factual errors in the text. Meaning: they fact checked her book before it was on shelves.
- The Daily Show dedicated numerous segments to fact checking media reports and the questionable declarations of talking heads. As noted by this Poynter Online story, the Daily Show actually employs a full-time researcher/fact checker. The show’s big coup this year was twice exposing that Fox News mixed old and new crowd footage of conservative events, thus creating the impression that attendance was significantly larger than it was.
- The value of fact checking for journalists was perhaps best demonstrated by a group of students in the Netherlands. A new program at the Tilburg School of Journalism sees fourth-year students spend a three-week stint fact checking the work of Dutch media. When I wrote about the program in October, I was told that roughly 80 percent of the stories they’ve checked included some form of factual error.
- We reached a strange milestone this year when CNN fact checked a comedy sketch from Saturday Night Live (their story was inspired by a similar report by PolitiFact):
- Speaking of PolitiFact, it won a Pulitzer this year for its work fact checking the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. It’s now reportedly close to a syndication deal with major newspapers. Is this the future of professional fact checking?
- Finally, if you wonder just how much calling bullshit matters to some journalists, look no further than what happened at the Washington Post earlier this year. Henry Allen, an editor, punched reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia in the face in part because of factual errors contained in a charticle produced by Roig-Franzia and a colleague. Clearly, this accuracy and fact checking stuff is serious business.
Other Notables: Emergence of Tools, Improving Online Standard
I’ve long been lobbying for news organizations and journalists to make more of an effort to prevent and correct factual errors. As journalism continues its move online, it’s more important than ever that corrections and accuracy evolve to fit the new medium. Fortunately, this year saw the emergence of some promising initiatives. Here are four highlights:
- MediaBugs — I must begin with a disclosure that I’m an unpaid advisor to this project. Author and former Salon.com managing editor Scott Rosenberg won a grant from the Knight Foundation to create MediaBugs, a website that aims to find a better way of bringing the public and journalists together to correct errors. Read more about it here. It will launch next year.
- hNews — Though not specifically created to deal with these issues, hNews is a project funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Knight Foundation that could have serious and valuable implications in the realm of accuracy and corrections. Learn more about it here.
- Django-correx — Ben Welsh, a database producer at the Los Angeles Times, created and released code that can be used to make corrections a more significant and flexible part of a Django-based website. Learn more about it here.
- Report on Unpublishing — Kathy English, the public editor of the Toronto Star, produced a detailed report, “The Long Tail of News: To Unpublish or not to Unpublish,” that outlined proper practices for dealing with requests to update or delete information — or entire articles — from a news organization’s website. As more newspaper archives go online, this issue will only become more important and time consuming for journalists. Her report is a valuable piece of guidance and research. We need more efforts like this to help create and define the online standard for corrections. Learn more about it here.
Correction of the Year
This year’s winner is without question amusing — not to mention embarrassing for the news organization that published it — in that it demonstrates a certain amount of cultural/musical ignorance. But it earns Correction of the Year honors because of what happened after it was published. This Washington Post correction inspired an amusing Twitter hashtag, which saw people come together to come up with imagined corrections. It’s Correction of the Year because it communicates that people notice and care about corrections, and because it demonstrates the participatory potential being unleashed by the Internet. The correction:
A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.
Additional background here and here.
Runner Up
British Medical Journal:
During the editing of this Review of the Week by Richard Smith (BMJ 2008;337:a2719,doi:10.1136/bmj.a2719), the author’s term “pisshouse” was changed to “pub” in the sentence: “Then, in true British and male style, Hammond met Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, in the pub and did a deal.” However, a pisshouse is apparently a gentleman’s toilet, and (in the author’s social circle at least) the phrase “pisshouse deal” is well known. (It alludes to the tendency of men to make deals while standing side by side and urinating.) In the more genteel confines of the BMJ Editorial Office, however, this term was unknown and a mistake was made in translating it into more standard English. We apologise for any misunderstanding this may have caused.
Other Favorites
News Tribune (Washington State):
A photo caption on Tuesday’s Page A8 said a student was performing the Heimlich maneuver on a dummy. The student was actually playing around and pretending to choke the dummy.
West Australian:
Green gaffe: There’s little doubt eco-warriors love a good chat as much as a tree hug, but our digitally dyslexic reporter’s creation of a new organisation was a revelation for verbose greenies (Recycling record comes under fire, page 18, March 23). It is more apt, of course, to discuss recycling with the Conservation Council than with the loquacious Conversation Council.
Toronto Sun:
A headline on page one of the Toronto Sun yesterday was both inaccurate and misleading. In fact, as the story reported, the mother of a boy involved in a high school fight in Keswick said her son “said something stupid.” She did not say nor imply he was stupid. The Sun regrets the error and apologizes to the boy and his family.
Denver Post:
Because of a reporter’s error, Bill Husted’s column on Page 3B on Sunday contained an item about a tombstone for “Elway the Drug Sniffing Dog.” The tombstone was digitally fabricated for a blog and does not exist.
The Independent (U.K.):
Further to the reference in the paper on 14 June to Rebekah Wade allegedly hitting her first husband, Ross Kemp, after a “drinking bout” with David Blunkett, Mr Blunkett has been in touch to correct the record: “the alleged ‘drinking bout’ was a cup of tea at 5.30 in the evening (with witnesses including Rupert Murdoch)… There was no ‘drinking bout’, I’ve never been involved in such a ‘drinking bout’ – with or without Rebekah Wade”.
Los Angeles Times:
Bear sighting: An item in the National Briefing in Sunday’s Section A said a bear wandered into a grocery story in Hayward, Wis., on Friday and headed for the beer cooler. It was Thursday.
The Guardian (U.K.):
A reply to a question in Notes & Queries yesterday recommended purchasing lion and tiger urine from Chester Zoo to stop neighbourhood cats from urinating in a vegetable patch (G2, page 17). Chester Zoo would like to forestall requests for its big cats’ urine: it asks us to make clear that it does not in fact sell either tiger or lion urine. Many years ago the zoo sold elephant dung, but it no longer does.
New York Times:
An article on Aug. 2 about older alumni who have been helped by university career counselors referred imprecisely to comments by a 1990 graduate of Lehigh University who lost his job in February when his company was downsized, and a correction in this space last Sunday misspelled his surname. As the article correctly noted, he is David Monson, not Munson, and he was speaking generally — not about himself — when he said that newly unemployed people sometimes mope around the house in sweatpants.
The Guardian (U.K.):
A comment piece about achievement and frailty in the lives of artistic greats mentioned Wagner’s reminder to his favourite Vienna chambermaid to wear purple knickers next time they met. A Wagner expert points out that the pants in question were pink (To understand genius, forget the purple knickers, 19 August, page 28)
The Guardian (U.K.):
A taste test of various foods described a sample from Anila’s Curry Sauces as starting well but having “a slightly dirty aftertaste”. Our reviewer meant to convey that the aftertaste was odd – not to imply that food hygiene might be poor (Look, no gluten! 19 August, page 14, G2).
Error of the Year: Wafergate
This was a bad year for the Telegraph-Journal, a newspaper in New Brunswick, Canada. First, it came under fire when it dismissed a summer intern after he committed a few factual errors in a controversial story. It also had to apologize for an incident of plagiarism in an unrelated story. But the biggest problem was a front page story that included a fabricated accusation against the Canadian prime minister, as well as a fabricated quote from a prominent priest. In Canada, the ensuing national scandal came to be known as “Wafergate,” and it eventually cost the paper’s editor her job. The publisher was also suspended. Here’s how I described the incident in a previous column:
In early July, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper traveled to New Brunswick to attend the funeral of former Governor General Romeo LeBlanc. At the funeral, the prime minister was given communion. Video footage shows him accepting a wafer from the priest, but cuts away before anyone can see him eat it. Nobody thought much of this until the Telegraph-Journal, a New Brunswick paper, published a front page article claiming that the prime minister put the wafer, which represents the body of Christ, in his pocket. Then everyone piled on the story. Eventually, the prime minister and his spokesman issued strong denials.
Almost three weeks after it set off a national controversy, the paper issued a front page apology and admitted that, “There was no credible support for these statements of fact at the time this article was published, nor is the Telegraph-Journal aware of any credible support for these statements now.” So, uh, how did they end up in the paper?
Then, on September 16, the paper issued another major apology, this time to Monsignor Brian Henneberry for fabricating a quote from him in the offending report. From the apology:
… The Telegraph-Journal said prominently, on the front page, that Monsignor Brian Henneberry, a senior Saint John priest, had “demanded” that Prime Minister Stephen Harper explain what he had done with the communion wafer that he had been given. The newspaper has determined that Monsignor Henneberry said no such thing and believes that the false assertion was wholly the product of improper editorial manipulation …
Though the paper has issued two prominent apologies, one major issue remains: the public doesn’t know who or what caused the paper to fabricate this controversy. Who made the decision to insert the offending accusation and quotes? Why did they do it? Do they still work for the paper? The paper apologized for its errors, but it hasn’t been transparent about what caused them. Sadly, this lack of disclosure is all too common among news organizations.
Runner Up: Hartford Courant Plagiarism
Last year, I noted a rather remarkable case of systemic plagiarism at a weekly paper in Texas. Who would’ve thought we’d see this same issue again in 2009? In early September, the Hartford Courant disciplined six people and admitted publicly that, “Over the last few weeks, The Courant carried several news stories in which the original news source attributions were removed and credit was given to a Courant staffer. This was plagiarism.” The paper was subsequently sued.
Apology of the Year
The Sun (U.K.):
IN a report on May 5, 2009, headlined “Riddle of Boruc, the brunette and his hair straighteners”, we claimed that Artur Boruc had brought two girls to the house he shares with partner Sara Mannei and had sex with one of them. We published a picture which we said showed him straightening one of the girls’ hair. We now accept the picture was in fact of Mr Boruc and his younger sister Paulina in Poland some years earlier, and that neither did Mr Boruc invite back nor have sex with either of the girls in our story. We apologise to Mr Boruc and Ms Mannei for any embarrassment caused.
Runner Up
Daily Mirror (U.K.):
OUR report (”Off their Facebook”, May 30, 2008) said that Amanda Hudson’s house on the Costa del Sol had been wrecked by drunken and out of control teenagers attending her daughter’s 16th birthday party, who had also stolen property. We also referred to an internet posting in which it was claimed that Amanda had punched Jodie because of what happened. We now accept that these allegations were untrue and we apologise to Amanda for the distress and embarrassment caused.
Other Favorites
Daily Mirror (U.K.):
ON 17 July 2008 in our front page article “Ron the Lash” we falsely reported that whilst recovering from an operation to his ankle Cristiano Ronaldo had “gone on a bender” at a Hollywood nightclub where he splashed out pounds 10,000 on champagne and vodka and threw his crutches to the ground and tried to dance on his uninjured foot. We now accept that Cristiano did not “go on a bender”, did not drink any alcohol that evening, did not spend pounds 10,000 on alcohol, nor throw his crutches to the floor or try to dance.
The Sun (U.K.):
SURREY Police have not blamed gipsies for an attack on their force helicopter, no staff in their operations rooms were threatened by gipsies and no gipsy site was being targeted for a raid as we reported on May 14. We apologise for the mistakes and are happy to set the record straight.
Sunday Express (U.K.):
On Sunday, August, 2, in our article Robin Hood And His Merry Hell In The Pub, we said that Russell Crowe had been banned from, amongst others, the Brickmakers pub in Windlesham, Surrey whilst staying in the area filming a new Robin Hood epic. We have been informed that Mr Crowe has never been to the Brickmakers pub and therefore the incident never took place. We also acknowledge that Mr Crowe has not been banned, ejected or asked to leave any pub in Windlesham, Surrey or anywhere else in the UK during the shooting of Robin Hood. We apologize to Mr Crowe for the embarrassment and stress caused directly by our error.
Daily Mail (U.K.):
An article on May 25, 2007, ‘The Cult Guru Who Stole My Son’ made claims that William Van Gordon was a ‘brainwashed zombie’ and Edo Shonin brainwashed him and that the Buddhist retreat which they ran was a cult. We accept this is untrue. We apologise to both men for the contrary impression given.
The Independent (U.K.):
In our article ‘Wikiworld’ (3 February 2009) we repeated several claims about Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder: that he had a company that dealt in “soft porn” and was short-lived: that he had had to defend himself against “allegations from former colleagues that he used Wikipedia as a personal piggybank”: that he faced controversy over his age and “doctored his own Wikipedia entry to knock it down a couple of years: and that there had been speculation and board in-fighting about Wales’s relationship with the organisation. Jimmy Wales has pointed out that we repeated allegations which have no truth and we apologise to him for this.
The Sun (U.K.):
IN my column on August 22 I suggested that Sharon Osbourne was an unemployed, drugaddled, unfit mum with a litter of feral kids. This was not intended to be taken literally. I fully accept she is none of these things and sincerely apologise to Sharon and her family for my unacceptable comments. Sorry Sharon…
Typo of the Year
The Daily Universe, a student paper at BYU, recalled and trashed 18,000 copies of an edition after discovering a typo. Notably, it was a typo that could have offended the Mormon church. The paper issued a brief apology and also published a lengthy article to explain the error. The apology:
In printed copies of Monday’s Daily Universe, due to a spelling error in a photo caption, the word “apostles” was replaced with a different word. The Daily Universe apologizes to the Quorum of the Twelve and our readers for the error.
So what appeared instead of “apostles”? From an article about the error:
A spelling error appeared in a photo caption in which the word “apostle” was rendered as “apostate.” In referring to activities at the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last weekend, the caption read in part, “Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates and other general authorities raise their hands in a sustaining vote. . . .” Link
Other Favorites
The Sunday Paper (Georgia):
An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Buffington’s special support hose as “mercury-lined.” The hose are mercury-gauged, meaning that barometric mercury is used to measure the compression of the hose. They are not mercury-lined which would, of course, make them poisonous. I regret the error. — SR
The Guardian (U.K.):
This article was amended on Tuesday 20 January 2009. In our entry on Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days, we referred to a Prairie Ho Companion; we meant a Prairie Home Companion. This has been corrected.
Reuters (note the highlighted text near the end of the article):
Best Headline Error
Daily Express (U.K.):
An explanation of the error is available here.
Runner Up
Award for Multiple Errors
An “appraisal” of Walter Cronkite published by the New York Times on July 17, after the former news anchor’s death, set off an accuracy-related storm. The story, written by television critic Alessandra Stanley, resulted in two corrections, one of which was for multiple errors. Part of the reason for the outcry was Stanley’s well-publicized previous problems with accuracy. The other complaint was that the errors were for easily verifiable facts. The paper’s public editor weighed in on the issue, and I wrote two columns about it, along with a blog post. Here are the corrections:
An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.
And:
An appraisal on July 18 about Walter Cronkite’s career misstated the name of the ABC evening news broadcast. While the program was called “World News Tonight” when Charles Gibson became anchor in May 2006, it is now “World News With Charles Gibson,” not “World News Tonight With Charles Gibson.”
Of course, that Times story wasn’t the only example of media inaccuracy related to Cronkite’s death. Below are two other notable corrections, one from AP and the other from the Times:
In an obituary of Walter Cronkite on Page A1 July 18, The Associated Press, relying on published accounts that included Cronkite’s memoir, reported erroneously that “cronkiter” was used in Sweden and the Netherlands as a term for “TV anchorman.” Olof Hulten, a journalism educator in Sweden, and Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s Expert Desk say the term is unknown in their countries.
And:
An obituary on July 18 about Walter Cronkite, using information from his autobiography, “A Reporter’s Life,” misstated the origin of the term “anchor.” While Mr. Cronkite was referred to as the anchor of CBS news coverage of the 1952 presidential conventions, that was not the first time that “anchor” and “anchorman” were used. Both terms had been applied to broadcasters in other contexts before the conventions. The obituary also included an erroneous anecdote from the autobiography about the extent of his fame. He was said to be so widely known that newscasters in Sweden were once called “Cronkiters,” but that term is not known to linguists in that country.
Best Photo Misidentification
Canoe, one of the biggest news sites in Canada, mistook a Canadian Press reporter for a man facing four terrorism-related charges. The offending image:
A picture of the accused:
Runner Up
A Queens hairstylist sued the New York Daily News after the paper twice identified her as the woman accused of helping run a prostitution service patronized by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. In two stories, the paper published a photo of Bojana Vuleta and identified her as Kristin Davis, the madam. Vuleta’s photo first appeared with a February 1 article, “Madam’s Slippery Story of Sex Attack.” On Feb. 5, lawyers representing Vuleta sent a fax to the News informing the paper of its error. Then the incorrect photo appeared again the next day. The offending articles were then, shamefully, scrubbed off the News’ website, and the paper published a very weak correction:
A PHOTO in Sunday’s and yesterday’s Daily News of a woman identified as the madam Kristin Davis was in fact another woman, Bojana Vuleta. The News regrets the error.
Best Photo Error
The Washington Times used an image of the Obama daughters to illustrate an article about a very different topic:
Runner Up
The Peterborough Examiner in Ontario, Canada, and Metro Toronto, a free commuter paper, both published a photo that showed some Peterborough-area students having fun at the Kinsmen Santa Claus Parade. One guy was really enjoying himself. So much, in fact, that neither he nor the photographer (nor subsequent editors) noticed that his penis had fallen out of his shorts. Here’s the top of the offending image:
Go here if you need the full monty.
Best Photo Fakery
New York Times Magazine:
A picture essay in The Times Magazine on Sunday and an expanded slide show on NYTimes.com titled “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age” showed large housing construction projects across the United States that came to a halt, often half-finished, when the housing market collapsed. The introduction said that the photographer, a freelancer based in Bedford, England, “creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation.” A reader, however, discovered on close examination that one of the pictures was digitally altered, apparently for aesthetic reasons. Editors later confronted the photographer and determined that most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show. Had the editors known that the photographs had been digitally manipulated, they would not have published the picture essay, which has been removed from NYTimes.com.
Best Geographical Error
The Justice (Brandeis University)*:
The original article provided the incorrect location of New York University’s new institution. It is in Abu Dhabi, not Abu Ghraib.
Runner Up
Canadian Press:
The Canadian Press moved a story April 3 that erroneously reported The Wilkins Ice Shelf was originally part of Jamaica. In fact the Ice Shelf, located on the western side of the Antarctic was originally the size of Jamaica.
Ode to Unreliable Sources
Brief citations for sources that couldn’t stick to the truth:
- The Ahwatukee Foothills News fell for a rather elaborate hoax perpetrated by 21 year-old Vinayak Gorur. He convinced the paper that he was a young chef on the rise, which resulted in a fawning profile. Link
- The Minnesota Daily, a student newspaper, published an editor’s note to unpack the lies of one Charles Carlson: Some of the claims made by Charles Carlson included in this article were later found to be untrue. Several months after this story was printed, Carlson admitted he had lied about officiating tennis in the Beijing Olympics, and had also lied about growing up in England and having a personal connection to the Clintons. Hillary Clinton never shared her crème brulee torte with him. Carlson grew up in the United States–not in England. Carlson claims he was a communications director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, but The Minnesota Daily has been unable to independently verify this. See a Daily article about Carlson on March 2 for details about these inaccuracies. Link
- The New York Daily News published an account of hip hop artist Roxanne Shanté that turned out to be filled with fabrications on her part. Slate revealed the lies, and the paper eventually admitted the problems with its story.
Best Sourcing
Daily Star (U.K.):
ON 18 September 2009, we published an article in which Warren Furman, also known as the Gladiator “Ace”, was reported as denying “internet rumours” that he had raped Jordan. In doing so, the article implied that these “rumours” were sufficiently serious to require a response from Mr Furman. In fact the “internet rumours” consisted of very few ambiguous posts on an internet chat forum. They have since been deleted. We wish to make it clear that neither the posts nor any other matter, provided the basis for the false suggestions that Mr Furman may have raped Jordan. We apologise unreservedly to Mr Furman for the distress and offence caused to him by the article appearing to suggest otherwise. We also accept that he did not act irresponsibly nor jeopardise his recovery and in fact made a full recovery from his injury in record time. We apologise to him for the embarrassment and offence caused and have agreed to pay him substantial damages and his legal costs.
Best Science Reporting
The Daily Telegraph (U.K.):
Owing to an editing error, our report “Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped, claim scientists” (June 23) wrongly stated that research presented at the recent BPS conference by Sophia Shaw found that women who drink alcohol are more likely to be raped. In fact, the research found the opposite. We apologise for our error.
Best Misquote
YES! Weekly (North Carolina):
After careful review of Keith T. Barber’s interview with Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith, we have determined that Mr. Keith was misquoted in a single instance. The piece ran in the Aug. 26 edition of YES! Weekly under the headline, “Forsyth DA: Racial Justice Act inherently flawed.”
The quote we reported: “If you’re African American, you’re six, seven or eight times more likely to have a violent history. I didn’t go out there and put a gun in your hand and say, ‘You commit eight crimes and I’m a white man and I’ll commit one.’ That’s just instincts, that’s how it is.”
The actual quote: “If you’re African American, you’re six, seven or eight times or some figure more likely to have a violent history. I didn’t go out there and put a gun in your hand and say, ‘You commit eight crimes and I’m a white man and I’ll commit one.’ That’s just statistics. That’s how it is.”
The differences between the two quotes have been noted with italics …
Other Favorites
From a Countdown with Keith Olbermann broadcast in February:
Incidentally, a correction on Murdoch. We have quoted several times the transcript of a News Corp conference call provided by the usually reliable financial website called SeakingAlpha.com [sic], in which the News Corp boss was quoted as saying, “we have never been a company that tolerates facts.” It turns out SeekingAlpha.com got it wrong. Murdoch, in fact, said “we have never been a company that tolerates fat.” SeekingAlpha.com has yet to correct or apologize for its mistake, so we will. Henceforth, we will stick exclusively to the transcripts from ShiverMeTimbers.com.
SeekingAlpha.com did end up correcting its transcript.
The Border Mail (Australia):
The Game Meats Company at Myrtelford is a halal-accredited organisation which processes only goats, emus, ostriches and deer…At no stage did export operations manager Rick Cavedon say Senator Fielding had ’saved our bacon’.
Best Brief
In January, it took the New York Times Magazine more than 300 words to explain what went wrong with a roughly 250-word brief:
An article in the Year in Ideas issue on Dec. 14, 2008, reported on Josh Klein, whose master’s thesis for New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program proposed “a vending machine for crows” that would enable the birds to exchange coins for peanuts. The article reported that beginning in June 2008, Klein tested the machine at the Binghamton Zoo, that the crows learned how to use it and that after a month the crows were actually scouring the ground for loose change. The Times has since learned that Klein was never at the Binghamton Zoo, and there were no crows on display there in June 2008. He performed these experiments with captive crows in a Brooklyn apartment; he told the reporter about the Brooklyn crows but implied that his work with them was preliminary to the work at the zoo. Asked to explain these discrepancies, Klein now says he and the reporter had a misunderstanding about the zoo. The reporter never called the zoo in Binghamton to confirm. And while the fact-checker did discuss the details with Klein, he did not call the zoo, as required under The Times’s fact-checking standards. In addition, the article said that Klein was working with graduate students at Cornell University and Binghamton University to study how wild crows make use of his machine, which does exist. Klein did get a professor at Binghamton to help him try it out twice in Ithaca, with assistance from a Binghamton graduate student, and it was not a success. Corvid experts who have since been interviewed have said that Klein’s machine is unlikely to work as intended. These discrepancies were pointed out to The Times by the Binghamton professor several weeks after the article was published; this editors’ note was delayed for additional reporting. These details should have been discovered during the reporting and editing process. Had that happened, the article would not have been published.
Most Creative Correction
OC Weekly:
In the Feb. 27 story “Hive and Seek,” we mistakenly referred to the subjects as the Backyard Beekeepers. Their name is actually Backyard B Keepers. The Beekly regretzzzz the error. And thankzzzz to The Orange CountyRegister for totally ripping our story off on April 2 (dun-dun-DUNNN!)-and, uh, getting the name of the group right (wah-wah-wahhhh).
Most Labor-Intensive Correction
The Toronto Star reported that Financial Post Magazine, the glossy business mag published by the National Post newspaper, took the extraordinary step of removing a page from every copy of an issue in order to avoid publishing an error. From the Star’s story:
Readers of the Financial Post Magazine were left scratching their heads yesterday after they discovered that a story about Dominic D’Alessandro, chief executive of Manulife Financial Corp., had been mysteriously torn out of the publication.
The story – titled “Bang for the Buck. Dominic D’Alessandro’s options and reputation at risk” – is listed in the index of the April 2009 edition. The D’Alessandro yarn was to appear on page 16. Trouble is, readers found only the ripped remnants of that page in the publication’s stapled fold.
A source familiar with the situation said officials at Manulife complained to the Post after spotting an online version of the story prior to the magazine’s distribution. The story reportedly contained a “serious error” about Manulife and the Post volunteered to physically remove the page from every copy to appease the financial services giant. The error was egregious enough that a standard correction was not sufficient, the source said …
Best Hoax
The Sun (U.K.) reported in a front page story that several famous Jews were being targeted by Muslim extremists. Later, it published an article noting that it had fallen for a hoax:
A PHONEY terrorism “expert” has confessed to duping newspapers and a senior politician. Glen Jenvey has admitted making up stories about Islamic fundamentalism, including a faked list of prominent Jewish “targets”, which included Lord Alan Sugar.
He revealed his scheming in an interview with BBC reporter Tom Mangold, aired on Sunday’s edition of Donal MacIntyre’s Radio Five Live show.
Jenvey told how he fabricated the list of Jewish targets by posing as a fundamentalist on an extremist website where he urged others to suggest names. He then leaked the made-up list to a trusted news agency, used by The Sun, and online forum Ummah.com was wrongly accused of being used to prepare a backlash against UK Jews.
Jenvey – who had been described as “an extremely capable and knowledgeable analyst” by Tory MP Patrick Mercer – said: “I’m fully responsible for the story. The Sun was deceived …
Runner Up
The editor-in-chief of an academic journal resigned after his publication accepted a hoax article. From a report by the Guardian:
The Open Information Science Journal failed to spot that the incomprehensible computer-generated paper was a fake. This was despite heavy hints from its authors, who claimed they were from the Centre for Research in Applied Phrenology – which forms the acronym Crap. The journal, which claims to subject every paper to the scrutiny of other academics, so-called “peer review”, accepted the paper …
Award for Mistaking Satire For Reality
The Daily Targum, a student paper at Rutgers, published an editorial decrying a bill in North Dakota that would cause “a picture of a fertilized egg… [to be] considered child pornography.” As you can imagine, the bill in question had no such measure. The paper was fooled by a satirical article. From the offending editorial:
…Pregnant women in North Dakota may now not be able to celebrate and show off their unborn baby the way society has traditionally accepted.The North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill that states a picture of a fertilized egg is now considered child pornography. It is now going to the North Dakota Senate to be voted on. This bill, if passed, will make it possible for women and men who have a sonogram as their profile picture on Facebook to be arrested and put on a sex offender registry list…
An excerpt from the resulting apology:
The editorial ‘Sonograms, child porn’ ” which ran in (a recent) opinions section was completely inaccurate and based on false sources. No bill has been passed in North Dakota that states a picture of a fertilized egg is now considered child pornography. … We wrote an editorial based on what we later learned was a satirical piece. …We at the Targum deeply regret the error … please accept our deepest apologies for not checking our sources.
Runner Up
Phoenix New Times:
In this week’s cover story, In the Flesh, we reported that NBA Commissioner David Stern would seek a proposed “tattoo cap” on NBA players at the end of the 2011 season. Turns out, the proposed tat cap is a hoax. We picked up the story from Foxsports.com, but the spoof article, “NBA Pushes for Tattoo Cap, Players Association Resists,” was originally published on the Gerbil Sports Network blog of Con Chapman. It turns out that Chapman’s a serious sports journalist — sometimes. His The Year of the Gerbil is a non-fiction book about the 1978 Red Sox-Yankees pennant race. But his blog site features spoof and humor pieces …
Best Archival Correction
New York Times:
An article on April 30, 1906, about a New York watch repairer, Jonathan Dillon, who recalled secretly inscribing Abraham Lincoln’s watch while working on it in a Washington jewelry store in 1861, misstated part of the inscription, using information from Mr. Dillon (who the article noted had, at 84, “a remarkable memory.”) The inscription reads: “Jonathan Dillon April 13- 1861 Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels on the above date J Dillon. April 13- 1861 Washington thank God we have a government Jonth Dillon.” The inscription does not say, as Mr. Dillon recalled in 1906: “The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try.” (Besides misspelling Sumter, Mr. Dillon also inscribed the wrong date. The opening shot of the Civil War was on April 12.) An article about the watch, which the Smithsonian opened on Tuesday to settle decades-long speculation about the inscription, is on Page C1.
Best Numerical Error
The Pleasanton Weekly (California):
Other Favorites
Fresno Bee:
Kanaan Marcelino, 19, was arrested by the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department on suspicion of having unlawful sex with a minor more than three years younger than he is. A news brief in Tuesday’s Local section incorrectly said Marcelino was arrested for engaging in sexual acts with a minor 3 years old or younger.
Hamilton Spectator (Canada):
A story Saturday about Home Hardware signing on with Jim Balsillie’s bid to bring an NHL team to Hamilton got the number of people employed by the chain wrong. Home Hardware has 18,000 workers, not six million. We apologize for the error.
Best Translation Error
A large Lego giraffe greets visitors at the entrance to the Legoland Discovery Center in Germany. And if you believed a Reuters report from earlier this year, people couldn’t help but steal the giraffe’s penis. The story had a bit of fun with this:
BERLIN (Reuters) – Visitors to a tourist attraction in Berlin have been making off with an unusual memento — the 30 cm long penis of a Lego giraffe. The Lego phallus belongs to a six metre tall model that has stood outside the entrance to the Legoland Discovery Centre on Potsdamer Platz since 2007. “It’s a popular souvenir,” a spokeswoman for the centre said Tuesday. “It’s been stolen four times now …” The penis is made out of 15,000 Lego bricks. It takes model workers about one week to restore the long-necked animal’s manhood at a cost of 3,000 euros (2,600 pounds), the spokeswoman said. The centre is now erecting a metal construction to protect the giraffe’s genitalia. (Reporting by Caroline Copley, editing by Tim Pearce)
One problem: the Lego giraffe does not have a penis. People were stealing its tail. The confusion arose because the German word “schwanz” commonly means tail, but is also used as a “a vulgar term for the male member.” **
Other Favorites
The Times (U.K.):
On November 5 we translated the name of Ed and Nancy Kienholz’s artwork at the National Gallery, The Hoerengracht, as ‘Gentlemen’s Canal’. This should have read ‘Whore’s Canal’. We apologise for the error.
The Guardian (U.K.):
A news agency item (Volcano begins to erupt on Galapagos island, 13 April, page 20) reported that flowing lava could affect “iguanas, wolves and other fauna” on Fernandina island. The surprising reference to wolves probably stemmed from a mistranslation of one of the South American terms for sea lion, lobo marino (sea wolf).
The Guardian (U.K.):
Welcome to Wales, a headline attempted to say in yesterday’s piece about the Ashes series opening in Cardiff (Croeso y Cymru: a top catch for Cardiff, page 9). That should have been Croeso i Gymru. What our version meant was Welcome the Wales.
Best Dummy Text
The Advertiser (Australia):
AN incorrect Thought for the Day was published yesterday.
The Bible Society SA, which provides the Thought, was not responsible. It should have read: “Lord God, you lead me along good and right paths in life.” Psalm 23:3 – Bible for Today.
Mark 7:21-23, from the Bible for Today, reads: “Out of your own heart come the things that corrupt you – evil ideas, vulgar deeds, theft, murder, adultery, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness. – Jesus”
Here’s what they published the day before:
This is the thought of the day and this is where you put the thought of the day as if anyone has a thought for the day. And can’t work out what the hell is going on. But who knows what is happeningishness. – Jesus Mark 7:21-23 (Bible for Today)
And with that, let us give thanks for a year of errors and corrections, and, of course, a ton of totally accurate reporting. Remember that mistakes happen — and then they end up here. Don’t forget to check out my book, and my weekly column for Columbia Journalism Review. This site’s RSS feed is here. Thanks for reading.
*Correction Dec. 16: This entry originally and incorrectly said that the Justice is based at New York University. It is a student paper at Brandeis University. Thanks, Tracy and Josh!
** Correction Dec. 17: As noted by a commenter, I originally wrote that the German words for tail and penis were similar. In fact, the German word for tail is also used as a slang term for penis. Thanks, LKM!
