The common problem with fact-checking is a misplaced reverence for “expertise” as a substitute for hard-nosed reporting and independent evaluation. So here are a few friendly suggestions for better fact-checking: Reporters do not represent the establishment, they should be suspicious of it; politicians who seem reasonable may not be; politicians who depart from the Washington [...]
In “Two mullahs went into a bar…” (November 26th) we cited Omid Djalili as a British Muslim comedian. He jokes about, among others, Muslims but is himself a Bahai. Sorry. Link *Correction December 2, 2011: The orignal version of this post’s headline mistakenly used the word “be” instead of “but”. (“Not a Muslim, be he [...]
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
In our article on Europe’s bail-out plan (“No big bazooka”, October 29th 2011) we incorrectly said that Greece’s partners would have to lend €100 billion more than the €109 billion they promised in July. In fact they plan to lend €130 billion in total. Sorry. Link Report an error
A few years ago, Slate exposed a Texas weekly called the Bulletin for being perhaps the first newspaper to pursue plagiarism as a standard operating procedure. The paper published article after article that had been stolen from elsewhere. It closed down soon after being outed. So what will happen to Reader Magazine, “Southern California’s best [...]
In our “Parable of Detroit” (October 22nd), we were a little unfair to note that there were “an awful lot of white faces” at Tech Town. The business accelerator points out that 65% of its new clients this year are from minorities, and that it has recently set up a fund for women- and minority-owned [...]
An apology sent out by email to members of the IEEE and readers of its weekly Tech Alert email newsletter: Dear Members and Readers, Please accept our sincere apologies for the headline in today’s Tech Alert: “With the Arduino, Now Even Your Mom Can Program.” The actual title of the article is “The Making of [...]
In “Behind the Scenes” (October) we made an unfortunate joke about CKUA’s funding drive. We apologize for this ill-advised humour and regret any false impression it may have created. CKUA is a responsible steward of its listeners’ donations; gifts are used wisely and ethically towards the production of original and unique programming. Money generated during [...]
IN OUR briefing last week on women and the Arab awakening (“Now is the time”), we said that Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s Nahda party, opposes the country’s liberal code of individual rights, the Code of Personal Status, and its prohibition of polygamy. We also said that he has threatened to hang a prominent [...]
Editor’s Note; An earlier version of this story included a comment erroneously attributed to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, criticizing the White House’s efforts at political messaging. Newsweek and The Daily Beast regret the error. The above editor’s note was placed atop a piece by Howard Kurtz.The original version of his story included this quote [...]
An apology published by the Financial Mail of South Africa: An investigation by the FM has revealed that certain sections of the article “Dilemma about horns”, which was part of the magazine’s cover story titled “War on rhinos” in the September 9 edition of the magazine, were copied from a Bloomberg Businessweek article titled “Saving [...]
An article from Music Week that explains a recent, embarrassing error made by the publication: So, here’s what happened… Music Week recently conducted an interview with the utterly charming and mind-blowingly successful songwriter RedOne. For quite a lengthy period he talked about how he had recently been in the studio with Dive Bella Dive, One [...]
Misunderstandings between the French and visiting British vacationers are a traditional feature of summers in France. But did a British malentendu over another French summer staple — a fictional series of articles in Le Monde — contribute to a mysterious sell-off in French bank stocks last week? That is the question that French politicians, business [...]
We erroneously attributed the well-written July Guns and Loads column (“Big Stuff”) to Wayne Van Zwoll, when in fact it was written by our illustrious bush pilot/writer, Mike Lunenschloss. This may be the first time we have succeeded in ticking off two writers with one article. Our sincerest apologies. Report an error
The original version of this article contained several factual errors. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s title at RealNetworks was misstated; she was a senior vice president. The maximum value of her current credit card debt is $50,000, not $150,000. Her assets last year were at least, not almost, $1.1 million. The minimum net worth she reported during [...]
A report from Stinky Journalism: … the BBC, Time magazine, the Telegraph and other news outlets published stories about a dog in Israel being condemned to stoning in Israel. As the BBC explained, the hoax story: “It was reported that the dog reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer [...]
Romenesko spotted this wonderful correction from AAA World magazine, which was posted in the feedback section of the AAA website: Many of you noticed a slight error in our July/August feature, Ghost Fields, where we suggested that President Lincoln delivered a speech in Philadelphia on June 16, 1964. The actual date of the president’s speech [...]
In my article for the magazine on Jon Huntsman, which went online Monday and appears in print this Sunday, I wrote this line: Common wisdom had it that Obama and his team had shrewdly decided to move Huntsman out of the country and take him off the Republican playing field for 2012 — a not-illogical [...]
The Hockey News deeply regrets and retracts the publication of its June 9, 2011 story entitled: “Source: Craig Leipold to acquire additional 40 percent of Minnesota Wild if minority owner Philip Falcone forced out.” The story appeared on thehockeynews.com. The story was erroneous concerning the proceedings of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and [...]
A pull-quote accompanying the winter review of Haya Molnar’s book Under a Red Sky: Memoir of a Childhood m [sic] Communist Romania should have read “I wish the world would stop hating Jews because I’m still the same person I was before I knew I was Jewish.” In an unfortunate typo, the pull-quote that ran [...]
A computer security expert featured prominently in a recent Vanity Fair story about a major computer virus has accused the article’s author, Michael Joseph Gross, of manipulating facts and painting an inaccurate picture of his personality. Gawker has a nice summary of the blog post by Ralph Langner. Here’s an example of the kind of [...]
Psychology Today has apparently yanked a blog post by London School of Economics evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa that wondered why black women were considered less attractive than other women. The post, titled “Why Are Black Women Rated Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women, But Black Men Are Rated Better Looking Than Other Men?” was posted [...]
The pictured robot in our May 7th story on robots being used to deal with Japan’s nuclear disaster (“NukeBots”) was neither used in Japan nor a PackBot, as claimed in the caption. Our apologies. Link Report an error
Star magazine featured a rare cover line on its most recent issue: “Star Apologizes to Katie Holmes – Inside.” No, you don’t see magazines, let alone gossips magazines, trumpet corrections/apologies on the cover. When it happens, you can bet there were some serious errors made about someone with access to good lawyers. Here’s the resulting [...]
Correction March 25: It turns out this is a Photoshopped cover. The magazine posted the below note on its website. I was one of many who were fooled, not that it excuses me in any way: They say there is no such thing as bad publicity, and we do love a Tails cover gone viral. [...]
