An entry in the ''What's On Today'' television highlights in some editions on Thursday about Peter Sellers films on TCM misidentified his role in ''Man in a Cocked Hat.'' He played Prime Minister Amphibulos, not a ''bumbling diplomat.'' (That role was played by Terry Thomas.) The entry also misidentified one of Sellers's roles in ''Dr. [...]
A review on Dec. 26 about “Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses,” a memoir by Claire Dederer, included a misattributed quotation. While Nietzsche was not one to shy away from home decorating tropes (“I cannot stand this motley wallpaper style,” he wrote of George Sand in “Twilight of the Idols”), he is not the [...]
CNN has retracted a story dealing with questions surrounding the treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning at the Marine Corp Base Quantico in Virginia. Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan said Tuesday that there is no investigation into the decision last week to put Manning, who has been charged with leaking classified government documents to Wikileaks, on [...]
There are a few topics that every public editor or ombudsman will inevitably address during their tenure. Conflicts of interest and accusations of bias are bound to provide column fodder. Corrections and accuracy, too. And within the realm of corrections and accuracy, you can usually count on an ombud examining the tension between speed and [...]
I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]
Feel free to call me juvenile, but this is an unfortunate headline (spotted by Gawker): Reminds me of this from 2009: Report an error
I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]
An article last Thursday about the men’s wear shows in Milan misidentified the clothing company where Mark McNairy, the designer for Woolrich Woolen Mills, once worked. He was a designer for J. Press, not J. Crew. Link Report an error
Want to correct a mistake made by the Onion News Network? Be prepared for them to invade your life: 'FactZone' Viewer Has Sad, Pathetic Life Thanks, Daniel! *Correction January 30: The headline of this post originally and incorrectly used the word "views" instead of viewers. Thanks, Steve! Report an error
I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]
Gawker has exposed a nasty practice at health and fitness publisher Rodale: … A tipster tells us that Zinczenko "copies and pastes" old Men's Health articles for his "Eat This, Not That" column for Yahoo! Health that runs under his byline. So we ran his prose through a search engine. We discovered that Zinczenko—whose cult [...]
In yesterday’s Independent, Ian Herbert attributed quotes to the ITV football analyst Andy Townsend which suggested that he had made sexist comments on Twitter as part of the Andy Gray/Richard Keys story. Those quotes originated from a spoof Twitter account. We apologise for any embarrassment caused to Mr Townsend, who has no connection to the [...]
I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]
In his final column, outgoing Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander writes that the Post … has become riddled with typos, grammatical mistakes and intolerable "small" factual errors that erode credibility. Local news coverage, once robust, has withered. The Post often trails the competition on stories. The excessive use of anonymous sources has expanded into blogs. [...]
I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]
The song is Hey, Soul Sister by Train, not Train by Soul Sister as we had it in a report on the overtaking of rock'n'roll by hip-hop (RIP rock'n'roll? Professor of pop reads the last rites as hip-hop takes over the charts, 11 January, page 3). Link Report an error
There's a lot of conflicting information flowing about today's deadly attack at a Moscow airport. Note the mismatched headline and lead in this story from KTNV ABC in Las Vegas: Update January 24: They fixed the headline ("31 dead in Russian attack"). Fast work, but no correction. Thanks, @chrishogg! Report an error
Because of an editing error, we seemed to translate the following phrase – "On me prete la reputation d'etre un auteur d'apparance legere" – as, "I'm reputed to be a lightly apparelled author". French speakers will be relieved to hear that the phrase in the translator's copy was, "I'm said to be an apparently 'light' [...]
The table in "War's overlooked victims" (January 13th) mistakenly blamed the Indian army, rather than Pakistani forces, for 200,000 rapes in 1971. We apologise. Link Report an error
I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]
Ken Auletta's latest article in the New Yorker — a long feature about the new AOL — set off a lot of online chatter. One statistic in particular was highlighted by the Consumerist and Business Insider. The former writes: A New Yorker profile this week details how 80% of AOL's revenue comes from subscriptions, and, [...]
Fouad Mebazaa is the interim President of Tunisia. A Jan. 19 article incorrectly named him the interior minister and incorrectly spelled his name. Link Report an error
I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]
Golden Globes: A critic's notebook on the Golden Globes in the Jan. 18 Calendar, about how passion and quality can pay off in the movie business, described "Barney's Version" as "a $3-million adaptation of Mordecai Richler's acerbic novel and largely backed by Canadian interests." In fact, the budget was $30 million. Link Report an error
This post is part of the Carnival of Journalism, a project that gathers together a diverse group of bloggers to tackle a specific topic. Here’s the current topic: The changing role of Universities for the information needs of a community: One of the Knight Commission‘s recommendations is to “Increase the role of higher education…..as hubs [...]
