An information leaflet from the junta’s Ministry of Information promoting the annual Traditional Performing Arts Competition has an irksome misspelling of a Burmese word that has iritated and embarrassed the military leadership.

The misspelling of one Burmese word occured in the title of a play meant to honor the Tatmadaw (military). Instead of  “Sons as Valuable as Treasure,” the title read “Sons Who Make Their Parents Suffer.”

The information leaflets have been distributed to a wide audience, including the generals.

“When the leaflets were distributed, they created widespread gossip among government servants,” said an officer at the Ministry of Labor in Naypyidaw

The misspelling may be unintentional, but if was intentional the person responsible could be punished because it aroused the generals’ anger, he said.

There was a similar incident in 1999 when the junta’s official newspaper Kyae Mon (The Mirror) printed “World Renowned Liar” above of a photograph of former intelligence chief and junta strong man, Gen. Khin Nyunt. Two employees from the newspaper, U Hla Han and U Tha Win, were arrested and one of them died during interrogation…

Let’s hope the person(s) responsible escape punishment.

Thanks, Kevin!

An unfortunate blunder by the Prime Minister’s Office has residents of Nunavut alternately chuckling and cringing.

A news release sent out Monday outlined Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s itinerary as he began a five-day tour of the North.

The release repeatedly spelled the capital of Nunavut as Iqualuit – rather than Iqaluit.

The extra “u” makes a world of difference in the Inuktitut language.

Iqaluit, properly spelled, means “many fish.”

Spelled with an extra “u,” the Nunavut language commissioner’s office says the word translates as a derogatory reference to “people with unwiped bums.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the tweedy Conservative candidate for the new parliamentary seat of North-East Somerset, has been caught red-handed trying to rip off the Sun newspaper in his latest campaign leaflet.
Rees-Mogg – who, as the son of the former Times editor Lord Rees-Mogg, should perhaps know better – admitted that a flier posted through residents’ doors in the constituency contained text lifted directly from an article by the Sun’s political guru Trevor Kavanagh. “Though the piece expresses my views, I did not specifically write it, although I agree with the points made,” says the Moggster, pictured left.
“While the points are valid, plagiarism is a bad thing and I will drop a note to Mr Kavanagh apologising. We won’t ask the person who did write this to write for us again. It’s an embarrassing matter for which I apologise.”
To his credit, Kavanagh is taking what amounts to intellectual theft with a pinch of salt. “Jacob was good enough to call and apologise” he told me. “I told him I was flattered and not at all offended.” Link

Via Greenslade.

…Photo editors in the U.S. variously blamed themselves and AFP, a respected photo agency, for not catching the photo.
“AFP should have caught it, really,” says Tim Rasmussen, assistant managing editor for photography at the Denver Post, which ran the photo on A1. “It should never have gotten past them.”
But another Post editor was miffed that he failed to catch it. “Oh, I hate days like this,” said Ken Lyons, the paper’s front-page photo editor. “It was right there in front of me. I should have seen it.” …
Catching some of the heat Thursday was Getty Images, which distributes AFP in the U.S. Getty director of photography Pancho Bernasconi says the AFP content arrives through an automatic feed and Getty does not edit it.
Some newspapers made it clear in their captions or credit lines that the photo was provided by the Iranian government. Others did not. The Denver Post ran the image as its lead art and credited it to AFP/Getty; the Baltimore Sun ran the photo on page 1 and credited it to Agence France Presse.
Early Thursday on the East Coast, more than 12 hours after the AFP image had been distributed, the Associated Press moved a nearly identical photo showing three missiles. It appears to have been photographed a fraction of a second apart from the AFP image. In a news story, the AP said it obtained the photo from the same Iranian Web site from which the AFP obtained theirs.
The first person to call foul on the photo appears to have been the political blog Little Green Footballs, which spotted the manipulation Wednesday. It took until Thursday for word to spread widely through sites like The Drudge Report and The New York Times. The AFP correction ran shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday on the East Coast.

UPDATE July 17: A reader wrote in to note that militaryphotos.net, not Little Green Footballs, was the first “to call foul” on the photo. You can read the post here. Thanks, Dominik!

And here are the corrections I’ve seen thus far (AFP corrected/retracted its image on Thursday):

On Page 1 Thursday, a photo released by the Iranian government accompanying a story about Iran’s test-firing of missiles was apparently digitally manipulated to include four missiles. Another image was released Thursday that shows three missiles. A story about the photo appears on Page 12. Link

A photograph of the test firing of missiles released by the public relations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Sepah News, which ran on the front page of yesterday’s editions of The Sun had been digitally altered. The Sun was unaware of this manipulation. The photograph above is the correct image, which shows one missile remaining in the launcher. Link

Iran missile test: A photo from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that accompanied an article in Thursday’s Section A about the country’s test of medium- and long-range missiles apparently was digitally altered to show four missiles successfully launching. It later became clear that the original photo showed only three rockets. News coverage on A1 and A4. Link

A related correction:

In some broadcasts, we did not note that the Web site Little Green Footballs had posted an item Wednesday evening declaring that the photograph of the Iranian missile launch had been doctored — before The New York Times published its analysis Thursday morning. Link

Contacted Sunday, the Fort Wayne native attributed the plagiarism to shortcomings in his character: “Pride. Vanity. It’s all my fault. It’s inexcusable. What I did is wrong. I categorically apologize.”
Until Friday, Goeglein was special assistant to President Bush and public liaison deputy director. Early Friday morning, Michigan blogger and former News-Sentinel columnist Nancy Nall posted excerpts of a Thursday guest column by Goeglein and nearly identical paragraphs from a 10-year-old essay in the Dartmouth Review by Jeffrey Hart. Less than 12 hours later, after The News-Sentinel found plagiarism in 20 of 38 columns dating to 2000, Goeglein resigned.
An examination of 39 more guest columns from Goeglein published during the 1990s turned up seven that pulled material from earlier-published sources without attribution, including another from Hart.
Evidence of plagiarism appears as early as 1995. During 1998 and 1999, six of 15 guest columns written by Goeglein were plagiarized. In 1998, he was press secretary for former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats. In 1999, he was communications director for The Campaign for Working Families in Washington, D.C.
Goeglein’s guest columns were unsolicited submissions to the editorial page. He was not paid, and there were no deadlines for their completion, News-Sentinel Editor Kerry Hubartt said. Hubartt announced Friday the newspaper will no longer publish columns from Goeglein.
In multiple e-mails to The New-Sentinel on Friday, Goeglein, 44, apologized for his actions. “I am more apologetic than you know, and from my heart. Please know how deeply sorry I am,” he wrote to Editorial Page Editor Leo Morris.
On Sunday, Goeglein said, “I have no plans at this point.” His responsibilities in the president’s administration ended Friday with his resignation, he said.

Romenesko has been tracking this (1,2,3,4,5,6) and AP also has a story up. Of particular interest is a fascinating article Nall wrote for Slate. She recounts how she uncovered the plagiarism, and details how bloggers and commenters moved the story forward at a rapid pace:

Saying the news cycle moves at an ever-increasing pace doesn’t even qualify as a cliché anymore. But this felt like a new record. Reporting in one minute, writing in one hour, a whole career undone in one day. Reading the comments piling up on the original post was a surreal experience, as one reader after another checked in with evidence, with links. It was journalism as hive mind. “Everyone wants to play now,” someone wrote after posting a link.

People, including myself, often point to “Rathergate” as a case study in networked fact checking. In my book, I dedicate a chapter section to the “new checkers,” the cadre of engaged citizens who mobilize to act as external fact checkers. The Goeglein story is the latest example of this phenomenon. From Nall:

I spent much of the weekend thinking about all this. My ex-colleague Leo Morris, who edits the op-ed pages Tim used as his canvas for all those years, did as well and wrote on his blog: “This wasn’t mere hardware-pushed speed—a breaking news story for which people all around the world could see a grainy cell-phone photo five minutes after it happened. This was the online dynamic—people talking about the story and adding to it as it got bigger and more complex throughout the day.”
The story was new media, but, ironically, at its core was a very old-media concern—getting the little things right. Friday night, I got an e-mail from a fan of that notable Dartmouth professor of philosophy whose name started this whole thing. And guess what? Jeffrey Hart misspelled his name. It’s Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, not Eugene, not Hussey. When I entered the misspelled name into Google, it only turned up a couple pages of hits, and Hart’s essay was on the first page, so I spotted it right away. But if Hart had spelled the name correctly and Goeglein had pasted it as such in his own column, Hart’s decade-old Dartmouth Review essay, which mentioned the professor only in passing, would probably have been far back in the queue in the 20,000 Google hits his real name gets. And I probably would not have seen it—after all, I was just trying to find out how “notable” he was.

Remarkable. Goeglein was busted thanks to a plagiarized typo.

*Correction March 4: This post mistakenly referred to Nancy Nall as “Nancy Nail.” It has been corrected. Thanks, Kevin!

Hansard, the
Official Record of Parliament, is to have a dedicated corrections
column for ministerial slip-ups, Commons leader Jack Straw announced
today.
The measure was recommended by
the Commons’ procedure committee and will initially apply only to
Commons Hansard, but authorities in the Lords may decide to follow suit.
The corrections will appear in both the hard copy and online version.
Outlining
the move to MPs, Mr Straw said: “It is not satisfactory, it is not
satisfactory for the ministers concerned either, that corrections to
the record are scattered through Hansard or to be found in the library,
for those who can scurry through letters there.
"The
proposal is for a dedicated section of Hansard for corrections by
ministers in respect of any proceedings whether they are oral or
written which take place in this House and cross-referencing with the
original error."
The innovation is expected to come into force in the next session.
Mr
Straw was responding to Tory Greg Knight (Yorkshire E) who protested:
“A number of ministers who inadvertently mislead the House still
adhere to the obscure and unsatisfactory practice of putting a
correcting letter in the library – which of course nobody sees.”
Hansard,
a Commons department independent of the Government and Civil Service,
produces edited verbatim report of proceedings in both Houses…

What a difference a letter makes. A Web site "oops"
on the site of Florida governor Charlie Crist changed his last name
from Crist to Christ.
A page on the governor’s Web site listed his agency
appointees under a headline "The Christ Team." A spokeswoman says its
just a typo. But it’s a common one.
At least three Florida newspapers have referred to
Crist as Christ in the past two weeks alone. This mistake, however, was
a little embarrassing for the governor’s office. Once it was pointed
out, the Web page was corrected in less than a minute. Link

It appears as though this is one of those corrections:

Dec. 30—-A headline that appeared on 8B in some editions of Friday’s Broward & State section misspelled the name of Gov.-elect Charlie Crist.

The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad yesterday
apologised unreservedly to the readers of Weekend Mail for any distress
that has been caused by the publication of its latest issue.
"The articles were offensive and distasteful," chief executive officer Datuk Syed Faizal Albar said.
"Although
The Malay Mail and Weekend Mail are managed independently and have
their own editorial operations separate from the other newspapers, we
view this matter seriously as the papers are still printed by The New
Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad (NSTP).
"We
are seeking an explanation from the editors and will take appropriate
steps after assessing the response, as part of our ongoing inquiry into
this matter," he said.
NSTP also publishes
the New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Harian Metro newspapers, which
are headed by Group Editor-in-Chief Datuk Hishamuddin Aun.
The Malay Mail’s weekend edition, which focused on teenagers and sex, was criticised by two ministers and politicians yesterday.
Deputy
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the daily had gone
overboard, and that he received numerous calls complaining that the
articles were extreme and should not have been published.
"It was published in some detail. Profit should not be made at the expense of society."
He said such articles would erode the moral values of youngsters.
"It is becoming a great challenge to instil good values in youngsters with the easy accessibility of such materials these days."
Najib was commenting on a resolution at the Federal Territory Umno convention yesterday.
The
resolution, which was listed as the second most important among 30,
said the convention strongly urged the media to abide by the Rukun
Negara.
It strongly protested the publication’s "cheap sex" articles and exploitation of women to sell more copies.
The
resolution noted that such articles would contribute to immoral sexual
behaviour and increased social problems among youngsters.
Since Jan 1, the Malay Mail and the Weekend Mail have been operating independently of the New Straits Times.
Women,
Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul
Jalil said: "I am so embarrassed for them (Malay Mail). It is an
irresponsible act and downright vulgar."…
 

A staff member for Republican congressional
candidate Martha Rainville resigned Monday after evidence surfaced that
he had plagiarized other politicians in writing Rainville’s policy
statements.

Staff member Christopher Stewart, who was in charge of policy
research for the Rainville campaign, wrote several policy statements
that Rainville said clearly constitute plagiarism.

"I’m just incredibly disappointed," Rainville said.
Stewart declined to comment Monday night other than to say he supports Rainville’s campaign.
Rainville
said the statements accurately reflect her views on the issues, but she
didn’t know Stewart had taken the wording from other politicians. The
campaign removed the statements from its Web site Monday afternoon and
staff members were rewriting them, Rainville said.

The allegations of plagiarism surfaced after a Westminster
woman found similarities on the Internet. Julie Waters, a Web designer
and musician, said she was researching the race between Rainville and
Democrat Peter Welch because she was considering volunteering for the
Welch campaign.

Waters said after she came across a blog that pointed out
similarities between Rainville’s health care policy and a speech by
President Bush, she wondered if there were other duplications.

"So, I did Google searches," she said. As a psychology
instructor at Community College of Vermont, Waters said she’s familiar
with how easy it is for students to plagiarize from the Internet, and
how easy it is for teachers to catch them by searching for key words…

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A National Weather Service worker
inadvertently sent a tsunami warning to Alaska radio and television
stations Monday as employees were reviewing procedures to issue such
alerts.
Officials suspect the warning was transmitted when someone
accidentally double-clicked the cancel button with their computer’s
mouse, said Sam Albanese, warning co-ordination meteorologist for the
National Weather Service’s Anchorage office.
After the cancel button is clicked once, the screen disappears. But
once it goes away, the screen behind it has the transmit button in the
same location as the cancel button.
Rapidly clicking the mouse twice may have unintentionally sent the
tsunami warning since the computer program did not have a confirmation
screen to send it, Albanese said.
"There is no confirmation when that transmit is hit, it just starts to transmit," Albanese said.
Officials have initiated procedures to make sure the error is not repeated.
"We’re working with programmers to make sure there is a fail-safe
put into the program so we don’t transmit something inadvertently," he
said.
The message, which went directly from the weather service to Alaska
broadcasters, only contained a tsunami warning header. If it were a
real emergency, meteorologists would have added actual text into the
body of the message, outlining which areas of the state would have been
covered by the warning.
The Weather Service later sent a correction.
Media outlets across the state were taken by surprise with the 8:53
a.m. warning. The weather service received phone calls from stations
from Fairbanks to Juneau when the tsunami warning was not followed by
any further information.
Television stations also received calls after the tsunami warning crawled across their screens.
"Every phone in the place started ringing," said Ed Bennett,
assignment editor for KTUU television in Anchorage. "We had between 30
to 50 phones calls in the newsroom and an equal number at the front
office in a 15 minute period."

Seoul Central Court asked the Constitutional Court on Thursday to
review the newly revised media law, saying there were possibilities
that some of its clauses violated the constitution. The court said some
clauses of the Press Arbitration Act could be unconstitutional, citing
statutes allowing people to demand corrections regardless of the
initial reports’ accuracy. The court was considering a case filed by
the National Intelligence Service demanding a correction by the Chosun
Ilbo, a daily newspaper.
Media companies have protested against that requirement since the law’s
revision took effect in July last year, expressing concerns that they
would face a flood of requests for corrections although the initial
reports were written based on convincing investigations and published
for the public good. Until now, media companies have been exempted from
liability related to libel if the reports were made without malicious
intent.
The court said the revised law put an excessive burden on media
companies in fact-finding and would eventually shrink their role in
raising suspicions, infringing on press freedom.
The academic and legal community believe the court’s opinion will
likely be upheld by the Constitutional Court. ‘Scholars and members of
the legal community have already taken issue with that particular
clause,’ said Moon Jae-wan, professor of law at Hankook University of
Foreign Studies, noting that advanced countries had no such law.

HOLLYWOOD star Kevin Spacey has been "outed" by a government-backed group teaching gay history in Britain’s schools.The
American Beauty Oscar winner was until yesterday on a Famous Gays and
Lesbians list in a lesson plan by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender group.
Its History Month for February is
available on LGBT’s website. The Department of Education is believed to
be contributing £20,000 to the project.
Organiser Paul Patrick last night said he was "saddened and angry" at the "mistake".
But
Spacey was included on the list – alongside figures like Dale Winton,
Graham Norton and Oscar Wilde – from a school presentation a year ago.
Mr
Patrick said: "We double check our material carefully but Mr Spacey’s
name got through. I don’t know how. It will be withdrawn. Link

Iran said Monday it is barring CNN from working
in Iran "until further notice" due to its mistranslation of comments
made by the president in a recent news conference about the country’s
nuclear research.
In a speech Saturday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended Iran’s
right to continue nuclear research. State media have complained since
the speech that CNN used the translation "nuclear weapons" instead of
"nuclear technology."
The ban by the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry was read in a statement on state-run television.
"Due to mistranslation of the words of Ahmadinejad during his press
conference, activities of the American CNN in Tehran are banned until
further notice," the statement said.

CNN also has a story up about the ban. It notes that Iran’s president has reportedly asked for the ban to be lifted:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has asked that a ban on CNN journalists in Iran be lifted and that the network be allowed to continue working in the country, according to a report by the official Iranian news agency IRNA early Tuesday.

From a CNN statement about the mistake (quoted in a different article):

‘There are reports today, Monday, that Iran has
banned us from the country. CNN is very disappointed that this action
has been taken,’ Nigel Pritchard, a spokesman for the company, said in
a statement from CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta.
‘Due to an error in translation, CNN
incorrectly quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his
Saturday speech as saying that Iran has the right to build nuclear
weapons,’ the statement said.
In fact, President Ahmadinejad said that
Iran has the right to nuclear energy, and that ‘a nation that has
civilization does not need nuclear weapons’ and ‘our nation does not
need them’,’ the statement went on.
‘CNN apologized on all its platforms which
included the translation error, including CNN International, CNNUSA and
CNN.com and also expressed its regrets to the Iranian government and
the Iranian ambassador to the UN,’ Pritchard said.

And it should be noted that the translation company used by CNN has apologized to the network for the mistake (from the CNN article):

The translation company, Lesley Howard Languages, apologized to CNN.
"Obviously,
we’re taking it very, very seriously. We will never use him again,"
owner Lesley Howard said, referring to the interpreter.
She said
the same interpreter, who like other interpreters is contracted for
individual projects, has done good work in the past, including for CNN.
She added that there is no reason to believe the interpreter purposely gave the wrong translation.
"We pride ourselves on having incredibly high standards," Howard said.

Between 1998 and 2004, the trips were valued at $1.5 million, not $2.3 million. The number of White House officials who took more than $10,000 in sponsored trips was 23, not 51. One official, not 29 officials, worked in Vice President Al Gore’s office. AFL-CIO unions spent $18,087, not $200,000. The World Anti-Doping Agency, not the AFL-CIO, was the largest sponsor of such trips, spending $40,260. Eli Lilly and Co. spent $2,226, not more than $20,000. Harvard University spent $28,857, not $85,137. Link