A quotation on the perspectives page in the April 13 edition of NEWSWEEK incorrectly attributed an expletive to Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, during his recent appearance on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” In fact, it was Stewart who uttered the swear word. We regret the error. Link
You’d expect a magazine to exercise extra caution when publishing an article about a “vending machine for crows.” It’s a strange idea, not to mention one that was developed for a master’s thesis in a “Interactive Telecommunications Program.” Because the story doesn’t fall into the category of common knowledge, it requires particularly careful editing [...]
April 10, 2009 – 10:51 am
Romenesko spotted a remarkable story in today’s Toronto Star. The paper reports that Financial Post Magazine, the glossy business mag published by the National Post newspaper, took the extraordinary step of removing a page from each copy of its latest issue in order to avoid publishing an error. From the Star’s story:
Readers of the Financial [...]
In last week’s article on South Africa (”Politics v the law”, April 4th) there was a typographical error in the penultimate sentence, in which an opinion poll is said to have found that “Jacob Zuma’s popularity is unrented, at least among blacks, who still seem to support him overwhelmingly.” “Unrented” should have been “undented”. Sorry [...]
An unfortunate mistranslation led to the incorrect report on our website that the Swiss had fired head women’s coach Hugues Ansermoz. It was not correct. Ansermoz’s job was in fact very secure as pointed out by the Swiss Ski president Urs Lehmann, who said, “Hugues Ansermoz is one of our best coaches: and will remain [...]
In the March 30 issue, an item in the Conventional Wisdom Watch wrongly implied that Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in President Obama’s State Department, bore some culpability for the $165 million in bonuses awarded recently to AIG executives for their work over the past year. Although Holbrooke was a member [...]
In “Surviving in a warmer world” (28 February, p 28) we said that “9 million people would need 18,000 square kilometres of land to live on”. That figure should, of course, have been 9 billion people, and the area of land 180,000 square kilometres. Link
The following post appeared earlier this afternoon with the headline “RIP Natasha Richardson 1963–2009.” Since that time, TONY’s sources have clarified the situation: Richardson is brain dead but has not passed away. Sources close to the family indicate that they regard this as death. We will update you on this sad story as circumstances warrant. [...]
Our review of two books on Islamic science wrongly described Copernicus’s solar system as geocentric, rather than heliocentric (21 February, p 46) – a confusion that might have saved Galileo a great deal of trouble. Link
March 13, 2009 – 10:43 am
Allan Britnell, a Canadian freelance writer and fact-checker, has written an article suggesting that magazines should make a point of telling readers about their dedication to fact checking. Writing for Masthead Online, a website that reports on the Canadian magazine industry, Britnell proposes “an industry-wide campaign to promote fact checking” to readers:
One of the issues [...]
Our report on the Yves Saint Laurent sale, “Caveat venditor” (March 7th), suggested that Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis may have been the purchasers of an early 20th-century chair designed by Eileen Gray. Mr Kravis assures us that neither he nor anyone in his family bought the chair in question. Our apologies to all concerned. Link
A March 1 Style article incorrectly stated that Keith Olbermann described Karl Rove as having “a head like a lump of unbaked bread dough.” That comment was made by Jon Stewart.
A Feb. 25 Style article incorrectly quoted President Obama as saying, “See, I know we can get some concessions in here,” during his address to [...]
We said that in 1709 “from Czechoslovakia in the east… everything turned to ice” (7 February, p 46). No such country existed in 1709. It was founded in 1918 and split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Link
February 27, 2009 – 8:00 am
There were three computation errors in Christopher Hayes’s March 2 “Cut the Military Budget.” The Pentagon budget request represents a 13 (not 12) percent increase over last year’s budget. The reported Obama Defense Department appropriation would represent a 2.2 percent increase over last year’s budget (not 8 percent). And regarding the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, [...]
February 26, 2009 – 9:31 pm
Barney Gimbel, a writer with Fortune magazine, resigned after being shown evidence that he had plagiarized from an article in the New York Times Magazine. The New York Observer reports that Fortune will publish an apology in its upcoming issue, which is slated to hit newsstands on March 9. The apology:
In our Feb. 2 issue [...]
February 6, 2009 – 8:00 am
Due to an editing error, our article on Cambodia last week incorrectly suggested that 4,500 residents near Boeung Kak lake in Phnom Penh had been evicted. This has not happened yet. Our apologies. Link
February 6, 2009 – 8:00 am
A letter published in the British Medical Journal:
Perhaps after 34 years it’s time for us to confess that we invented cello scrotum.
Reading Curtis’s 1974 letter to the BMJ on guitar nipple, we thought it highly likely to be a spoof and decided to go one further by submitting a letter pretending to have noted a [...]
January 30, 2009 – 8:00 am
In our briefing on the global car industry (”The big chill”, January 17th 2009) we reported that Rolls-Royce sold no vehicles in America in December 2008. Rolls-Royce has since told The Economist it has sold “more than 70 cars”, and Autodata, a market-research firm, says Rolls-Royce sold 31 cars that month. Link
January 27, 2009 – 8:00 am
In the January 2009 issue of The Washingtonian, we stated that Mr. Thomas J. Donohue sold shares of Sunrise Senior Living Inc. in 2008. The Washingtonian retracts those statements. They were not accurate. We regret those errors and any false impressions that those statements may have caused.
In that same issue of The Washingtonian, we stated [...]
January 15, 2009 – 8:00 am
During the editing of this Review of the Week by Richard Smith (BMJ 2008;337:a2719,doi:10.1136/bmj.a2719), the author’s term “pisshouse” was changed to “pub” in the sentence: “Then, in true British and male style, Hammond met Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, in the pub and did a deal.” However, a pisshouse is apparently a gentleman’s toilet, [...]
December 22, 2008 – 8:00 am
We accidentally referred to a “stellar sea lion” (29 November, p 6). The featured mammal is a Steller’s sea lion. Link
December 15, 2008 – 8:00 am
Julie Jones, author of “‘Above all … don’t perform!’”: Playing to the Camera of Luis Bunuel, in Cineaste, Vol. XXXIII, No. 3, informs us that she received a letter from Juan Luis Bunuel, the filmmaker’s son, who, while saying that he liked the article, pointed out that the photos that appeared on page 23 are [...]
December 10, 2008 – 8:00 am
On the Contributors page of the December 1st issue, the book “In Sickness and in Power,” attributed to the New Yorker writer David Owen, was in fact written by a different David Owen. Link
Hat tip to Gawker.
December 5, 2008 – 8:00 am
Correction: On page 7 of the PEOPLE Extra: Sexy Forever issue, a photo of country singer Linda Davis was misidentified as Faith Hill. We regret the error.
December 5, 2008 – 8:00 am
On the cover-wrap of our November 8th issue we used an image of a bull with a broken horn to advertise our special report on Spain. Grupo Osborne has asked us to clarify that they own trademark rights in the bull (with horn intact), and that no reference to the group was intended. Link
