Oregon death penalty: An article in the Nov. 23 Section A about Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s declaration on the death penalty said that his decision canceled the scheduled Dec. 6 execution of Gary Haugen and came a day after the Oregon Supreme Court had cleared the way for Haugen’s death by legal injection. It should [...]
My main job at the moment is as editorial director of OpenFile, an online news organization operating in six Canadian cities. Late yesterday afternoon, I spent about an hour helping draft a blog post that would offer an apology and explanation for readers about why we had to remove a story just a few minutes [...]
In a piece sketching the Leveson inquiry, we incorrectly stated that the Sun newspaper sent a reporter to the home of a junior counsel to the inquiry. The Sun did not send a reporter to the barrister’s home. We apologise for the error and any suggestion that there was an intention by the Sun to [...]
Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog is a good read, particularly for tips and information about data journalism. Earlier today he pointed to a very good post on the Neurobonkers blog, “The worst piece of drugs reporting I have ever read”. It completely rips apart a very lazy and inaccurate story originally published by the Hull [...]
Not a media error, but too good to pass up. A report from AP: A typo has led to the election of the wrong man to a finance board in Derby, Conn. James J. Butler was the highest vote-getter, winning 1,526 votes for the 10-member Board of Apportionment and Taxation, which monitors the town’s finances. [...]
In our issue dated November 5th we said that the UN General Assembly had voted to admit Palestine as a full member of UNESCO, when in fact the General Assembly did not conduct any vote regarding Palestine’s membership of the cultural agency. Sorry. Link Report an error
No, that’s not Wisconsin. An ESPN screenshot grabbed by Darren Rovell: Thanks, Daniel! Report an error
Our article,”Inside the ‘basket case’:the film that will shock football”(29 October 2011) was a feature on a fly-on -the wall documentary film,The Four Year Plan,which has just been released about the recent turbulent history of Queens Park Rangers FC. In it we mentioned an allegation made in the film by the former QPR Chairman, Gianni [...]
An interview with the universities minister, David Willetts, described him as an enthusiast for coalition government and quoted him as saying: “You can’t get anywhere without an appeal to tribal loyalty.” In fact he said the opposite: “You can’t get anywhere with an appeal to tribal loyalty.” (‘Many more will go to university than in [...]
… Dan Schultz, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab (and newly named Knight-Mozilla fellow for 2012), is devoting his thesis to automatic bullshit detection. Schultz is building what he calls truth goggles — not actual magical eyewear, alas, but software that flags suspicious claims in news articles and helps readers determine their truthiness. [...]
A REPORT published on The Australian’s website on October 17 (“Australia’s envoy `not named’ for war crimes”) reported that the UN panel of experts had found there “was credible evidence that both the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam were guilty of war crimes”. The Australian accepts that the UN report [...]
Oh typo: Original was here. Thanks, Corey! Report an error
An amusing, confusing correction from the student paper at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia (AMS is the student society at the university): Thanks, Doug! Report an error
A letter to the editor: I wish to refer to the story in last Saturday’s ‘Rolling Back the Years’ supplement recalling the Kerry Babies saga and the Independent Newspapers team coverage of the tribunal at Tralee. The writer refers to his “now deceased colleagues, Dick Cross and Noel Smith”. Sadly, Noel has left us to [...]
A brief on Thursday’s sports pages under the headline, “Cheyenne Warriors hockey team will distribute turkeys Saturday,” contained multiple errors. The Warriors are a professional indoor football team. Also, the Warriors will be distributing Thanksgiving turkeys at 117 W. Ninth Street in Cheyenne. The mistakes were due to editor error. Report an error
THE Express Advocate, in the issues of September 20 and October 21, reported on an incident involving Ourimbah rugby league coach Adam McEwen following the Central Coast Cup grand final match and his subsequent appearance at a Central Coast Division of Rugby League judiciary committee hearing. We reported that Mr McEwen received a severe warning [...]
The office of the Press Ombudsman has directed The Sunday Independent to apologise to Credit Ombudsman Manie van Schalkwyk for falsely stating in a sub-headline that he was being investigated for corruption. Van Schalkwyk lodged a complaint with the Press Ombudsman about a story headlined “Hawks investigate complaints – Allegations of a conflict of interest [...]
In our article last week about Sir Andrew Cahn, the new chairman of the UK advisory board of Chinese telecoms company Huawei, we said he had stepped down from his previous job as head of UK Trade & Investment with a £1.2 million pay-off. This was not true. He retired from UKTI at the normal [...]
A retraction from AP: The Associated Press has withdrawn the 12th and 13th Ld-Writethrus of its story about the Natalie Wood investigation. The story quoted Christopher Walken telling Washington, D.C. sports talk radio station ESPN980 about his recollections from the night that Wood died. The station now says that it was a hoax involving a [...]
In the report headed Lindsay on a record run, (Countryman, November 10, page 5) it was incorrectly stated that Lindsay Cannon was looking at a grain crop of 600,000700,000 tonnes. The crop estimate is actually 60007000 tonnes. Countryman apologises for the error. Report an error
When should a news organization correct or remove archival content? Where should online corrections be placed? How should readers be encouraged to report mistakes and request corrections? These are some of the common questions I’m asked about online corrections. I think a lot of news organizations continue to struggle with them, and to look for [...]
IN court yesterday the Daily Star apologised to Garry Tweedy for an article published on April 13 in which we incorrectly reported that Mr Tweedy had admitted on his Facebook profile that he had been to prison a few times. We accepted that Mr Tweedy did not post this comment, nor has he ever been [...]
The Iranian man being sought in connection with a bank scandal in Tehran referred to in a story on Monday, Oct. 31 , is Mahmoud Reza Khavari who lives in Toronto. The Globe and Mail did not suggest or intend to suggest that Mehregan Amirkhosravi of Montreal has been accused of any wrongdoing. Report an [...]
I’m in New York today participating in an event about fact checking at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. I kicked things off with a (very) quick look at the history of fact checking and what its future might look like. Below are my slides. You can follow along today on Twitter with the #FactFest [...]
On the heels of the Daily Mail starting a new corrections column, Trinity Mirror papers the Daily Mail, Birmingham Mail, South Wales Echo, Western Mail and Huddersfield Examiner announced they too would be using page two to display corrections. Here’s the note to readers from the Mail: AT THE Birmingham Mail, we pride ourselves in [...]
