The new ombudsman is Edward Schumacher-Matos.

A Bad Byline

From a report on WQAD.com:

The Western Courier is an award-winning newspaper at Western Illinois University that takes pride in its publication. The paper comes out three times a week and usually without any major problems.

But on the back page of Monday's issue, a glaring error: a vulgar typo in the byline of a sports story, dubbing the writer a "bad mother [expletive]."

"In any newsroom situation, it's a highly stressful situation. Jokes are made sometimes to defuse that stress and make everybody feel a little more comfortable," said Western Courier editor-in-chief Ed Komenda. "That byline was in the template for years before I started, and it just so happens it got printed accidentally."

Komenda said he sees the typo as a mistake he clearly wished wouldn't have been made …

Read the paper's apology here.

A Tabloid Reporter's Confession

Richard Peppiat was until recently a reporter for the Daily Star, a tabloid paper published by U.K. media mogul and former pornographer Richard Desmond. Rather than just resigning and quietly moving on, Peppiatt went out in a blaze of glory by writing a scathing resignation email that was subsequently published by the Guardian. The email accused the paper of fabricating reporting and pursuing an anti-Muslim agenda.* (I wrote about the resignation in my weekly Toronto Star column.). From the email:

… as a young hack keen to prove his worth I threw myself into working at the Daily Star with gusto. On order I dressed up as a John Lennon, a vampire, a Mexican, Noel Gallagher, Saint George (twice), Santa Claus, Aleksandr the Meerkat, the Stig, and a transvestite Alex Reid.

I've been spraytanned, waxed, and in a kilt clutching roses trawled a Glasgow council estate trying to propose to Susan Boyle (I did. She said no).

When I was ordered to wear a burkha in public for the day, I asked: "Just a head scarf or full veil?" Even after being ambushed by anti-terror cops when panicked Londoners reported "a bloke pretending to be a Muslim woman", I didn't complain. Mercifully, I'd discovered some backbone by the time I was told to find some burkha-clad shoppers (spot the trend?) to pose with for a picture – dressed in just a pair of skintight M&S underpants.

Forget journalistic merit, I heard this was just an ill-conceived ploy to land an advertising contract with the chain. Admittedly, that was unusual. Often we hacks write vacuous puff pieces about things you own. Few would deny there's one hell of an incestuous orgy of cross-promotion to leer at down at Northern & Shell HQ.

Never mind that it insults the intelligence of amoebas when your readers are breathlessly informed the week's telly highlights include OK! TV and the Vanessa Feltz Show.

I suspect you see a perfect circle. I see a downward spiral. I see a cascade of shit pirouetting from your penthouse office, caking each layer of management, splattering all in between.

Daily Star favourite Kelly Brook recently said in an interview: "I do Google myself. Not that often, though, and the stories are always rubbish. "There was a story that I'd seen a hypnotherapist to help me cut down on the time I take to get ready to go out. Where do they get it from?"

Maybe I should answer that one. I made it up. Not that it was my choice; I was told to. At 6pm and staring at a blank page I simply plucked it from my arse. Not that it was all bad. I pocketed a £150 bonus. You may have read some of my other earth-shattering exclusives.

'Michael Jackson to attend Jade Goody's funeral'. (He didn't.) 'Robbie pops 'pill at heroes concert'. (He didn't either.) 'Matt Lucas on suicide watch'. (He wasn't.) 'Jordan turns to Buddha.' (She might have, but I doubt it.)

I know showbiz is the sand on which your readership is built. And while I didn't write tittle-tattle dreaming of Pulitzers, I never knew I'd fear a Booker Prize nomination instead …

Correction March 14, 2011: This post originally referred to an "anti-Muslin agenda," instead of an "anti-Muslim agenda." Thanks to the commenters and @mattgauk for spotting this amusing typo.

A Radio Host's Meltdown

Courtesy of the great Montreal blogger Fagstein, here's Marco Campagna of The Team 990 in Montreal getting a little upset over some technical difficulties ("Nothing fucking works!"):

Thanks, Adrienne!

As news — and errors — began to flow on Saturday afternoon, I created a post to track the mistakes being made, and the discussion around them. It provides a good timeline of the mistaken reports (Rep. Giffords is dead; Rep. Giffords is awake etc.), and also highlights some of the talk on Twitter and elsewhere. But my work is by no means enough on its own.

Several other people have weighed in with reporting and analysis. Below is a collection of links to pieces I've found particularly interesting. I'll update with more as the story develops, so please add any worthy links in the comments of this post:

1. After conflicting reports in Arizona shooting, Sklar, Silverman track media mistakes while NPR explains, Poynter:

Just days after receiving praise for using Twitter to break news about his own company, NPR’s David Folkenflik tweeted an explanation of media mistakes made when erroneous reports aired that U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died after being shot in the head Saturday at a Tucson, Arizona shopping center during a public event.

Folkenflik seconded a tweet by New York Times media writer David Carr, who said, “Shock at media errors on fast-moving chaotic stories sorta shocks me. early going always going to be fraught.”

2. Arizona shootings: Take a slow-news approach, Salon.com/Dan Gillmor:

The reports from traditional news organizations, amplified by Twitter, blogs and other Internet media, have been a parade of unclear information — just what we've come to expect in such situations. CNN's headline now reads "Congresswoman Giffords shot" — with a sub-headline saying, "There are conflicting reports on whether she has died." No kidding: One of those conflicting reports was CNN's own report, citing an unnamed sources, that Giffords had died …

What we need to do is slow down. I posted this on Twitter an hour ago: "Please, everyone, wait for genuine info before jumping to conclusions about Arizona murders. Take a #slownews approach."

3. Teletype, Zach Seward:

Real-time narrative journalism is sloppy and uncertain, which is to say, realistic, and that roughness is what’s compelling. It gets you on a perfectly genuine level because the narrative is genuinely unresolved; all possibilities exist. The notion of a wire endures beyond the telegraph because it still captures the kinetic energy of a breaking-news story.

4. How incorrect reports of Giffords’ death spread on Twitter, Lost Remote:

… we ask: is deleting a tweet after the fact a lack of transparency, especially if any subsequent tweets don’t admit the error? Is a news organization obliged to tweet that it was wrong? Does the retweet function make such actions moot? We strongly believe in transparency, as do many of you. But whether deleting tweets is a responsibility or not, and whether a news organization must tweet that it was wrong, should lead to serious discussions in all newsrooms.

5. Editor's Note: On NPR's Giffords Coverage, NPR:

On behalf of NPR News, I apologize for this mistake to the family of Rep. Giffords, to the families of everyone affected by the shootings, to our listeners and to our readers.

The information we reported came from two different governmental sources, including a source in the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Nonetheless, in a situation so chaotic and changing so swiftly, we should have been more cautious. There were, obviously, conflicting reports from authorities and other sources. The error we made was unintentional, an error of judgment in a fast-breaking situation. It was corrected immediately. But we deeply regret the error.

Already all of us at NPR News have been reminded of the challenges and professional responsibilities of reporting on fast-breaking news at a time and in an environment where information and misinformation move at light speed. We learn, we redouble our efforts and dedication and move forward with our best efforts for the millions who rely on us every day.

6. NPR: 'We regret the erroneous news', Politico:

The news organizations that reported the mistaken account received some criticism on Twitter, with widely followed anonymous tweeter pourmecoffee writing, “Maybe MSM apoplectic over WikiLeaks accurate releases should focus first on things like not wrongly reporting people dead.”

But others came to the media organizations’ defense, with David Carr, media columnist at the New York Times, writing, “the shock at media errors on fast-moving chaotic stories sorta shocks me. Early going is always going to be fraught.”

The episode had echoes of the shooting of Jim Brady, President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, who was widely, and erroneously, reported dead after being hit by a bullet intended for the president in 1981.

7. Politics Begins at the First Shot, Columbia Journalism Review:

The misreporting that surrounded Saturday’s shooting is worrying and regrettable. It is also, in the age of the TV-blogopshere-Twittersphere triple threat, somewhat inevitable. We have sympathy for the legacy outlet that is misinformed by a sheriff’s office; and for the guy or girl sitting at his or her desk at another outlet, facing intense pressure to update an evolving blog report and not miss anything that might break. It’s almost pointless to lay individual blame. The problem feels more systemic, and we can see a healthy debate ensuing in the coming weeks about the nature of breaking news reporting, the role of Twitter in that reporting, and the need, perhaps, for something similar to what Gillmor calls a “slow-news approach.” We will be interested and keep our eye on it.

8. Media faces scrutiny after inaccurate Giffords reports, Yahoo!'s The Cutline:

The Tucson shooting has already sparked discussions about the use of violent political imagery—such as Sarah Palin putting Giffords' Arizona district under the crosshairs of a gun—and the heated rhetoric used by some talk radio and cable news hosts.

But the tragedy may also provoke conversations in newsrooms about how rushing to advance a rapidly moving story can lead to grave mistakes. NPR's Christopher also told Politico that the network has "already started internal discussions into the sequence of events in deciding to report that she had been killed."

9. Update January 10: @TVNewsLab sent along this link: Media Fails in Matter of Life and Death, Huffington Post:

What is needed is a serious examination of news practices. We need apologies from the television "faces" delivering the misinformation and we desperately need news executives to adopt standards, policies and consequences for mistakes made. It's simply not acceptable anymore to hear the same talk show and columnist admonitions we have heard too often before. And in breaking news situations, the burden also must fall on officials to release basic information much faster.

10. Media Outlets Apologize After Falsely Reporting Giffords' Death, Huffington Post:

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said that if he were covering the story in the 1970s and 1980s, he would not likely have gone with the NPR report. But if he were in the anchor chair in 2011, he probably would have.

"The pressure is immediate and almost crushing on you and your news organization to match that," he said. "Mostly what you hear are sets all over the world going to your competition and computers, handheld or otherwise, going to a different site."

11. Update January 10 #2: Conflicting reports of Giffords’ death were understandable, but not excusable, Poynter:

The mistake is a reminder that now more than ever, journalists need to put safeguards in place to catch mistakes before they happen and correct them after the fact.

“We’re not going to be able to create a more perfect human being,” Schulz said, “so we need to create more perfect systems.” Part of the problem is that we have a new medium but don’t have new correction systems to manage it yet. Schulz pointed out that both journalists and citizens who announce and share news should be part of the conversation about new systems.

“The fact is that everyone who’s involved in spreading news also needs to be involved in correcting it — and, right now, in helping to figure out how best to do so. That includes the people at Twitter,” she said. “Why not have a ‘correct’ function (like the ‘reply’ and ‘retweet’ functions) that would automatically send a correction to everyone who had retweeted something that contained an error?”

12. Update #3: Correct, don’t delete, that erroneous tweet, Wordyard:

For a private individual using Twitter, it might make sense to delete a message that you later discovered was in error. But for anyone tweeting as part of a professional media job, representing a news organization on Twitter, or using Twitter to do journalism independently, the course here ought to be plain: It’s almost always better to correct than to unpublish. Removing information you’ve already disseminated — sometimes called “scrubbing” — always leaves open the possibility that you’re trying to hide the error or pretend it never happened.

13. Why We Didn’t Delete The Tweet, WBUR:

After it was reported that Giffords was still alive, only one person retweeted our erroneous tweet, and I responded personally. In hindsight, I wish I had later responded to everyone who retweeted the erroneous news.

We have decided NOT to delete the erroneous tweet, because it serves as part of the narrative of this story. Facts can change fast when news is breaking, and that leads to errors. We need to own the error, not hide from it. But we also need to rectify the error and explain ourselves to people who trust us. Deleting the tweet would do more to harm trust than perserving it would do to harm truth.

14. NPR's Giffords Mistake: Re-Learning the Lesson of Checking Sources, NPR Ombudsman blog:

It’s not unusual in a chaotic, fast-breaking story with high interest like this shooting – where six died and 14 were wounded – for flawed information to get out. It’s understandable, though not acceptable.

But to report a death, incorrectly, is a serious, serious error and may have caused untold grief and pain for many who know Giffords.

NPR's ombudsman has more on how his correction came to be published:

Thanks to one persistent listener, NPR published a correction admitting that it has mistakenly – and more than once – inflated the number of State Department diplomatic cables released recently by WikiLeaks.

Since the cables first became public on Nov. 28, NPR had repeatedly referred to “thousands” of confidential State Department cables. In reality, as of December 30, 2010, only 1,947 are publicly available.

Here’s a hat tip to Henry Norr, a San Francisco listener who frequently complains about NPR's news coverage. He first contacted to me on Dec. 13. about this NPRWikiLeaks story.

“Do you guys just make stuff up and present it as fact?” Norr asked in an email. “You begin your ‘review’ of this story by saying  ‘First, the website released thousands of confidential U.S. documents.’ That's simply not true. All you have to do is go to the website in question and you'll see that it has thus far released precisely 1,344 of the documents in question – less than one percent of the 251,287 apparently in their possession. 1,344 is not 'thousands'!" …

MediBugs is also drawing attention to other news organizations that have made similar mistakes about the WikiLeaks documents.

The BBC has apologised over reports claiming millions of pounds raised by Band Aid was used to buy arms.

In March, World Service's Assignment said cash raised by charities to help Ethiopia had been diverted by rebels.

The BBC has admitted that Assignment gave the impression that Band Aid and Live Aid money had been diverted despite no evidence to back that up.

It apologised for further TV, radio and online reports which actually stated that Band Aid money had paid for arms.

The BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit found in its ruling that there was no evidence to support such statements and that "they should not have been broadcast".

"The BBC wishes to apologise unreservedly to the Band Aid Trust for the misleading and unfair impression which was created," it added.

The original investigation by BBC World Service Africa editor Martin Plaut included claims that substantial amounts of aid from western governments and charities went into rebel-held areas of Tigray province in 1985 and was used to buy weapons.

Former BBC chairman Michael Grade, a trustee of the Band Aid Trust, said Assignment had "sexed up" its story by "trying to smear Live Aid through this programme through the use of all the music from Live Aid and using Bob Geldof's name".

He added: "We're very glad finally to be able to reassure all the millions and millions of people around the world over 20-odd years who've given millions of pounds to Band Aid and Live Aid to relieve suffering that, of course, the money did not go to arms."

He said the BBC had made "a terrible, terrible mistake, they've damaged 24 years of work, they've damaged the public perception of giving aid to relieve starving people around the world".

And he questioned why it had taken seven months since a complaint by the Band Aid Trust for the BBC to make an apology …

It's rare and remarkable to see an apology issued in multiple mediums. The BBC has never done it before, according to the Independent:

The apology will be the first ever simultaneously broadcast across all three BBC services – TV, radio and online. It will be heard on BBC1, BBC News 24, World Service radio, Radio 4, and posted on the BBC website.

It will state: “The BBC has investigated these statements and concluded that there was no evidence for them. The BBC wishes to make clear that these statements should not have been broadcast, and to apologise unreservedly to the Band Aid Trust for the misleading and unfair impression which was created …

Via Stinky Journalism

Our critic mistakenly said that an ice age "marked the death of the dinosaurs," rather than their advent. In fact, neither is true. The text of the review has been updated.

*Correction July 3: Speaking of failure, the word "Jurassic" was misspelled in this headline. It has been corrected. Thanks, Kate!