Washington Post columnist Mike Wise had a point he wanted to make about the declining standards of the media. He made that point in the worst way imaginable: By making up a phony "scoop" and posting it on Twitter. It all started early Monday afternoon, when Wise tweeted that he had been told the NFL [...]
A picture caption on Friday with an article about the man accused of stabbing a New York cabdriver because he was a Muslim misidentified, in some editions, a woman shown with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and the driver, Ahmed H Sharif. She is Bhairavi Desai, a drivers’ advocate — not [...]
Another example is the decline of trust. In the mid-1970s over 70% of Americans told Gallup they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the press. Today: 47%. Clearly, something isn’t working. But revisions to the code of conduct that has led to this decline would be seen by most journalists as [...]
Washington Post columnist John Kelly recently turned up a dandy of a correction from the Post's archives. Read his column for the story that preceded this correction, which was published in 1897: LANHAM, MD., AUG. 18 — The account of a horsewhipping in this morning's Post, in which Andrew Hancock and Clifford Lanham were the [...]
"News delivered digitally in rapid cycles — with much less time for editing and oversight — will create more lapses. It is simply physics. The cure, or at least a salve, for this condition is transparency, accountability, humility. If The Times is going to publish more and faster, it will have to react faster to [...]
… The challenge is to find a way to quickly and accurately sort and evaluate a mass of incoming reports according to your preferences. This is a core element of distributed verification, which I called “the best way to engineer trust in today’s information environment” in a previous column about WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan documents. This is [...]
IN our edition dated Sunday August 15, we published an article under the headline "Attack-Row Uncle Shuns Niece's Vigil" which concerned Councillor Martin Connolly from Kilkeel. The article was accompanied by a photograph of Mr Desmond Kyle and not Councillor Martin Connolly as intended. We wish to make it clear that Desmond Kyle has no [...]
The Stockholm Journal article on Wednesday, about a movement in Sweden to abolish the monarchy, described incorrectly the circumstances surrounding the breakup of Prince Carl Philip and his girlfriend. It was amicable, not ''because of his alleged philandering.'' The article also misidentified the subject of a comment by Susanne Nylen, the monarchy reporter for Aftonbladet, [...]
A headline on page 5C Thursday misspelled the word "furry" as "fury." A copy editor made the error. Wednesday's edition contained two malapropisms. A Best Bet item on page 2B about the TV show True Blood should have used the expression "exact vengeance" instead of "extract vengeance." The company that supplies the feature made the [...]
An Aug. 26 story in the Sun quoted police warning of scams related to police-linked charities. One of the agencies mentioned by cops, the Canadian Police Comedy Festival, is a bona fide event in its eighth year and is not a scam. The Sun apologizes for any inconvenience caused by the story. Link Report an [...]
Well, this is strange. Plagiarist Gerald Posner, who lost his job at the Daily Beast earlier this year and has since been accused of literary theft in his books as well, is now working as a lawyer and representing Qayum Karzai, brother of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, among other members of the Karzai family. Part [...]
An interviewee at St Paul's boys' school in London, who gave his name as Joe Bibby, was reported in a newspaper story and a guardian.co.uk video as saying he'd received five A* grades in this year's A-level exams. St Paul's has informed the Guardian that this person was a prankster, not a pupil (The grade [...]
Romenesko spotted this apology from the editorial board of the Independent Florida Alligator student newspaper after they printed an unfortunate typo. From the apology: We’re sure you’ve heard about Wednesday’s front-page nightmare of a typo — and if you haven’t, we aren’t going to repeat it. Despite the overwhelming urge to pretend it never happened [...]
A woman accused of the attempted murder of Gabriela Spanic, an actor in Mexico, is said to have been slowly poisoning her and her family by adding tiny amounts of ammonium sulphate to their food. The name of the chemical was incorrectly translated from the Mexican police report that actually refers to ammonium sulfide, which [...]
Our attempt to expose the decline of opportunities to learn a foreign language in Britain was marred by errors in a foreign language, as well as one in English. Willy Brandt, the former West German chancellor, was quoted as having once said: “If I’m selling I’m happy to speak to you in English. But if [...]
An Aug. 24 headline and photo caption described “summit protesters” checking in for a court appearance relating to charges from the G20 summit. Some in the photo were not among those charged but were counsel representing them, including Toronto lawyer David Midanik and his articling student. As well, the headline incorrectly stated that those charged [...]
ON JULY 7, The Times published an article “Kaunda wins battle in the presidency – Zuma’s top aide tightens her hold as two more key officials prepare to leave”. Lakela Kaunda, deputy director-general in the Presidency, complained to the Press Ombudsman and The Times has been found guilty of contravening the Press Code for not [...]
The Niger delta supplies 8.2%, not 40%, of the crude oil imported by the US, as we stated in a story yesterday (Niger delta spills released twice as much oil as Deepwater. But it’s not Shell’s fault, UN says, 23 August, page 17). Link Report an error
Metro Pest Control has never been called to inspect or treat City Hall for bedbugs. Report an error
Corrections: We earlier wrote that Eliot Brown was leaving for the Wall Street Journal, and that was wrong, he’ll just be a stringer for them. Also, it’s “Rush & Molloy” not “Rush and Molly” though that does have a certain strange ring to it, and the potential of Molly Fischer writing about Neil Peart every [...]
The Beliefs column on Saturday, about Buddhist leaders who addressed a sex scandal, referred incorrectly to a 1990 article by Katy Butler, a journalist, titled ”Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America.” Ms. Butler did not describe Richard Baker, the abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center during the 1970s and 1980, as an alcoholic. She [...]
In a story Aug. 22 about the rally in Treasury bonds, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Treasury bonds maturing in 20 years or more have returned 2.1 percent so far this year. They have returned 21 percent. Link Report an error
Peaches and plums are often used metaphorically to connote happiness and good fortune, a recipe said, giving a cricketing example: “That was an absolute peach of a ball, got him plum LBW.” The fruity pun didn’t work in this case, because the word needed is plumb (Perfect plumming, 7 August, page 44, Weekend). Report an [...]
A picture caption on Thursday with an article about the selection of Chelsea Handler to be host of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards misstated the number of memoirs Ms. Handler has written. She has written three, not two. (In addition to the two mentioned, ”Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea,” and ”Chelsea Chelsea [...]
A report from Reuters (though note that the German tabloid Bild is not exactly known for rock-solid reporting): A German bank robber led his pursuers straight to him after taunting police in an email over their efforts to catch him. Authorities in the southern city of Wuerzburg said on Wednesday the 19-year-old sent emails to [...]
