December 23, 2008 – 2:01 pm
This is the final Regret post for 2008. Regular posting will resume on January 5, 2009.
I’m usually so busy tracking corrections and errors that I don’t get a chance to write about the best ways to prevent and correct mistakes. With 2008 coming to a close, it’s a perfect time to list some of the [...]
December 21, 2008 – 5:09 pm
On Friday, Columbia Journalism Review online published my latest weekly column. Read it here. I also wrote a Saturday op-ed for the Toronto Star about the year in errors and corrections. Below are excerpts from both pieces.
CJR column:
The Year in Errata
About a month ago, I began the laborious and depressing task of scouring the archives [...]
December 18, 2008 – 8:00 am
In this year’s round-up of the Year in Media Errors and Corrections, I unveiled the Ian Mayes Award for Writing Wrongs. It is given to the “publication or person that demonstrates wit and wisdom in the writing of corrections.” The winner is David Hummerston, the, deep breath, Saturday editor, editorial counsellor and readers editor of [...]
December 16, 2008 – 8:01 am
Editor’s Note: This site doesn’t accept advertising. It’s purely a volunteer effort on my part, and I’d be grateful if you’d consider purchasing a copy of the Regret the Error book, which won an award from the National Press Club this year. You can learn more about the book and read some reviews here.
Trend of [...]
December 16, 2008 – 8:00 am
As noted in this year’s edition of the Crunks, 2008 saw an example of institutional plagiarism (the Bulletin), as well as an incident of institutional fabrication (Mainichi Daily News). Both are mentioned below, along with the rest of this year’s notable examples of plagiarism and fabrication. On the more positive side of things, this year [...]
December 12, 2008 – 12:56 pm
My weekly Columbia Journalism Review online column is live on the site. The topic: obiticide. Death by media. An excerpt:
Death by Obiticide
I have some bad news to pass along this week: two people were killed as a result of sloppy journalism.
It happens more often than you might expect. It’s frequent enough, in fact, that I’ve [...]
December 5, 2008 – 1:13 pm
This week’s edition of my Columbia Journalism Review Daily column is online here. Inspired by the example of Wales Online (background), I look at the issue of scrubbing. Here’s the opening of the column:
Scrubbing Away Their Sins
We used to be able to throw out the news; to disappear it.
The morning paper would find its way [...]
December 2, 2008 – 11:57 am
I’m a bit late announcing this, but I’ve started writing a weekly column for Columbia Journalism Review’s website. It’s called “Regret the Error” and runs every Friday on CJR.org. I’ve written eight columns so far, and you can read them all here.
This column is a chance for me to provide some context for notable corrections [...]
November 3, 2008 – 11:46 am
This year’s U.S. Presidential election election marks the 60th anniversary of the “Dewey Defeats Truman” edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune. Since that headline was first published, it has become perhaps the most famous press error of all time. This is the story of how and why it happened, and what we can learn from [...]
September 23, 2008 – 8:00 am
A passage from Jesse Froehling’s story (spotted by Romenesko) in the Sept. 17 edition of Seattle Weekly brought back memories:
Mark Powell finds mistakes everywhere he looks. National monuments, scholarly texts, museums, The Washington Post, The New York Times: All have drawn the attention of Powell’s rabid, error-spotting eye. Powell will leave you seven-minute voicemails about [...]
A few hours before I received my award from the National Press Club in Washington, I paid a visit to the Newseum. It’s housed in a lovely new building, but I mostly cared about the bathrooms.
As was the case at its old location, the Newseum bathroom walls are covered in corrections, errors and other press [...]
The Torontoist blog has an interesting story about a man, a would-be burglar, and a series of remarkable photos. Plus, a little bit of copyright infringement.
In July of last year, Joel Charlebois, a Toronto resident, caught a man trying to break into his home. While trying to escape, the man fell from a second floor [...]
In November of last year, I was invited to the Toronto Star by Kathy English, the paper’s public editor, to give a presentation to newsroom staff. The Star is Canada’s highest circulation daily, and one of very few* media outlets in the country with a full-time public editor/ombudsman.
Prior to my presentation, we sat down [...]
Earlier this morning, a story on the New York Daily News’ website reported that New York Rangers forward Sean Avery “was rushed to a Manhattan hospital Wednesday morning in cardiac arrest just hours after his team’s playoff loss.” The story also reported that Avery was “unconscious and not breathing.”
The information was attributed to “sources” — [...]
That’s a line from a blog post by Guardian subeditor (copy editor) David Marsh. It’s long been a common refrain from journalists, especially editors. In fact, Mitchell V. Charnley said basically the same thing in the introduction to his 1936 study of newspaper accuracy, the first of its kind.
“As common as the layman’s superficial generalization [...]
Today was a historic day for newspaper apologies. A sad, shameful, embarrassingly historic day.
Two UK papers controlled by the same owner (Express Newspapers) issued front page apologies to a British couple, Kate and Gerry McCann. The apologies will be repeated in the related Sunday editions of both papers, the Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday*.
In [...]
January 24, 2008 – 7:59 am
Attention Montreal readers: I’m giving a free lunchtime talk about press errors, corrections and accuracy at the Atwater Library (1200 Atwater) on January 30 at 12:30 p.m. I’ll be sharing some information from my book and this site. Please come by. Here are the details:
Regretting Errors: The History And Current State of Media Accuracy, Errors, [...]
January 3, 2008 – 9:10 am
Public Eye, a blog launched by CBS News in September 2005 with the stated goal of bringing “transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News — transparency that is unprecedented for broadcast and online journalism,” died this week due to the lack of “a sustainable business model.” It was roughly 28 months old.
CBS Interactive cut [...]
December 24, 2007 – 8:00 am
Regret the Error will be taking a break from December 24 to January 1. Come back for fresh content on Jan. 2. In the meantime, feel free to send along any notable corrections or errors. I’ll post them on Jan. 2.
December 11, 2007 – 6:01 am
Written and compiled by Craig Silverman
Trends of Note
Obama Errors
Barack Obama appears to be a magnet for press errors.
He was mistaken for “Osama” in two (1,2) news reports by CNN, and in one by the New York Post. Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle once referred to him as a Republican, and the Hartford Courant has misspelled his [...]
December 11, 2007 – 6:00 am
This is the least enjoyable part of running this site, but we suppose somebody’s got to do it. Herewith, a month-by-month report of instances of plagiarism and fabrication in the press. Of particular note is the high number of incidents of plagiarism at student newspapers this year. A disturbing trend, to be sure.
January
A columnist and [...]
December 3, 2007 – 9:28 pm
After four-and-a-half months of re-reporting, long bouts of silence, and tangling with the US Army and various publications and bloggers, The New Republic today published a lengthy article by editor Franklin Foer that attempts to offer the magazine’s final word on the veracity of columns written by Scott Thomas Beauchamp, its Baghdad Diarist.
We’ll skip to [...]
November 15, 2007 – 8:00 am
Bruce Schneier, one of the leading thinkers in IT security, recently wrote a column for Wired.com in which he uses the example of corrupt NBA referee Tim Donaghy to examine systems that suffer from single points of failure. The same concept directly relates to journalism and accuracy.
What sorts of systems — IT, financial, NBA [...]
November 2, 2007 – 8:00 am
Jeff Jarvis, who blogs at BuzzMachine, writes and consults for The Guardian, and also teaches journalism at CUNY, was gracious enough to write the foreword for the Regret the Error book. He has posted an excerpt of his excellent contribution on his blog. Below is an excerpt of the excerpt, but you should go read [...]
October 30, 2007 – 5:00 am
Information that can’t be trusted is not less valuable; it’s worthless.
Those words were written by Orlando Sentinel public editor Manning Pynn in an important column published on Sunday. (Romenesko spotted it.)
Pynn was moved to write the column after noticing a spike in the number of corrections over recent months. “In the past [...]
