Thanks for being a regular reader. You can check out the award-winning Regret the Error book here. While we’ve had loose guidelines around this procedure for years, we’re going to need to formalize them, and then continue to evolve them. We’ll share what we come up with in updates to this post, and welcome your [...]
At the very beginning of the process of explaining what it all means, we incorrectly stated that today was Tuesday. Today is Wednesday. We regret the error. Link Thanks, @bydanielvictor!
On July 28, ESPN removed from its Web site a story about Lebron James and a party in Las Vegas, written by ESPNLosAngeles.com’s Arash Markazi, due to reporting concerns. The story was not linked directly on either ESPN.com or ESPNLosAngeles.com but was available via search engines for roughly 9.5 hours. In a statement, ESPN vice [...]
Slate published an interesting article by Jeremy Singer-Vine about “What the politics Web site [Politico] deletes from its articles without telling anyone.” From the piece: … How often does Politico, in the din of the news cycle, make significant changes to its copy after publishing it—without telling readers? Part of the answer, of course, depends [...]
Scott Rosenberg and Mark Follman of MediaBugs released a new report this week that highlights some corrections-related problems with Bay Area news outlets. (I’m an unpaid advisor to the project, but didn’t have any involvement with the report.) Here’s the core information: The results of MediaBugs’ first survey of Bay Area media correction practices show [...]
In a story contained in WENN’s 1st feed on 04 July 2010, headlined “SCISSOR SISTERS SHOW TURNS VIOLENT”, we stated that a fight broke out among the audience at the band’s concert for the U.K.’s iTunes Festival on 01 July, 2010. WENN wishes to make it clear that the incident in fact happened at an [...]
The print version of this column contained an error introduced by Cecil’s hapless assistant Little Ed, who had the earth turning in the wrong direction. Our apologies to disappointed readers hoping to see the sun rise in the west. Link Thanks, Brett!
A June 14 Photoblog post incorrectly identified a mass of oily material as a single, one-ton tarball found in the Gulf of Mexico. The post has been updated with information from the Coast Guard indicating the object is a “mass of tarball material” made up of many smaller tarballs collected from the gulf. Link
In a June 17 “Politics,” John Dickerson misquoted BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg as calling residents of the Gulf “little people.” He called them “small people.” Link
The June 16 Broadsheet post “Study: Fat Women Starved of Sex” originally stated that “obese men had just as much nookie as average guys.” It should have read, “obese men were just as likely to have had a sexual partner in the last 12 months as average guys.” Link
In a June 8 story on ESPN.com, Chris Wallace was misidentified as a reporter for ABC News doing a special report on Stephen Strasburg’s major league debut. Wallace is a reporter for FOX News who attended the game as a fan. The reference to Wallace has been removed. Link
In a May 28 story, msnbc.com incorrectly stated that Indiana Republican Senate candidate Dan Coats had been a lobbyist from 2000 until early this year. In fact, he was a lobbyist from 2005 until early this year. The story incorrectly included Goldman Sachs as a firm for which Coats lobbied. In fact, the lobbying disclosure [...]
Here’s what showed up in a slate reader’s RSS feed (click for larger): The article has been fixed, though no correction was added. Thanks, Andrew!
The May 17 Broadsheet post “Miss USA Stripping Scandal: How Shocking!” incorrectly stated that Miss Nevada Katie Rees lost her title after the emergence of a “hardcore pornographic photo shoot.” The photos in question were not actually pornographic. The story has been corrected. Link
In a May 21 ”Slatest” item, Jessica Loudis mistakenly cited a New Scientist article as saying that male bats that performed fellatio on each other before copulation. The article stated that female bats perform fellatio on male bats during copulation. Link
In our Saturday post about the California Democratic Party’s ad attacking Meg Whitman but masquerading as an “issues ad,” we described the abrupt ending to our conversation with CDP Chairman John Burton. Through his spokesman, Burton on Monday complained that he had been misquoted. Burton says he didn’t say “Fuck you.” His actual words were, [...]
In the April 29 “Culturebox,” Jonah Weiner originally stated that Moses was rendered as a giant glowing dreidel. Moses was depicted as the Master Control Program from the film Tron. Who sort of looks like a giant glowing dreidel. Link
This is a correction to my most recent column for Columbia Journalism Review: Correction: An earlier version of this column misspelled Craig Kanalley’s last name as Kanally. It’s pretty clear to me why I misspelled Craig’s last name: I didn’t use my checklist when doing a final read of this column. Lesson learned. Go here [...]
A correction issued by the Huffington Post that was spotted by FishBowl DC: In an embarrassing moment of Freudian word-vomit, we said in Tuesday’s lede that Kal Penn had been ARRESTED when the actor-turned-politico-turned actor had actually been MUGGED (at least we got it right in the article’s body). Despite Kal’s close association with certain [...]
In an item in the April 21 “Slatest,” Nicholas Jackson misquoted a CNN article, stating that the new $100 bill includes an embedded “security threat.” It includes an embedded security thread. Link
Due to a typographical error, an April 19 ”Climate Desk” erroneously stated that a company’s revenues were boosted by more than $500 million. The correct figure is $600,000. Link
A headline appearing within a March 30 story about the Catholic church incorrectly attributed a statement about alleged sexual abuse to Pope Benedict XVI. The statement was made by a German priest writing in The Times of London. Link WebNewser has some background: Under the article, “Losing Their Religion? Catholicism in Turmoil,” the related content [...]
First they had the exclusive (!) that Chief Justice John Roberts was “considering” stepping down: John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, is seriously considering stepping down from the nation’s highest court for personal reasons, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively. And then RadarOnline.com had the exclusive (!) that he wasn’t: Despite considering resigning [...]
Columbia Journalism Review today released a major report about magazine websites. (Disclosure: I write a weekly column for CJR, but had no involvement in this report.) You can read a brief intro and download the full PDF here. The report includes some interesting information about fact checking, copy editing and corrections. The results are mixed, [...]
Regret the Error Columns on Columbia Journalism Review online From My Posterous
