The shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others at a public event earlier today resulted in an onslaught of breaking news reporting. Major news organizations raced to gather reporting, and information began to spread quickly. As is often the case, this led to a lot of mistakes — including reports from NPR, Reuters, CNN, [...]
A report from NBA FanHouse: An ESPNEWS anchor has been suspended for an unknown period for lifting portions of a newspaper column and using them in a script without attributing where the passage originated. Will Selva, an anchor at ESPN for three years, issued an apology Wednesday for taking all but of a few words [...]
Pretty awful error by Fox News yesterday: The video is at Outside the Beltway. Report an error
Reader Miranda writes: The well-known German news program Tagesschau has created an online advent calendar of on-air mishaps. Anyone who understands German might find it interesting/amusing: http://advent.tagesschau.de/ Enjoy and thanks, Miranda! Report an error
On Nov. 4, Anderson Cooper did the country a favor. He expertly deconstructed on his CNN show the bogus rumor that President Obama’s trip to Asia would cost $200 million a day. This was an important “story.” It underscored just how far ahead of his time Mark Twain was when he said a century before [...]
A report by the BBC World Service's show Assignment wrongly stated that "millions of pounds raised by Band Aid was used to buy arms." The BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit has now weighed in, stating plainly that there was no evidence to support the reporting. Here's how the BBC itself reported on the apology, which was [...]
A CNN typo spotted by Gawker and TVNewser: Thanks, Daniel! Report an error
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation airs a regular program called Media Watch. I’ve highlighted the show’s work in the past — this was a particularly notable report — and a recent opinion piece by the show’s host is of interest. (Also see this related piece from the show.) Among other details, it offers information about how [...]
TV Newser offered this transcript of an on-air correction from Wolf Blitzer on March 5: We had a graphic on the screen that said “department of jihad” followed by a question mark and many of you tweeted me that you found that graphic to be offensive. I agree, it was. The graphic referenced a video [...]
Meredith Vieira was asked who she thought would light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremonies in Vancouver, and she gave a very strange answer. Vieira confused Canadian actor Michael J. Fox with Canadian cancer activist and athlete Terry Fox, who died in 1981. They even managed to use photos of both men: Thanks, Liam! [...]
The Daily Show recently busted Sean Hannity for using misleading footage during a report about Rep. Michele Bachmann’s tea party rally at the Capitol. (See updated information at the bottom of this post.) Hannity subsequently apologized on air: Then, last week, Fox News had to apologize again for doing the same thing. This time it [...]
The evening newscast of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation last night ran an image of the wrong Going Rogue Sarah Palin book. The book written by Sarah Palin is titled, Going Rogue: An American Life. Another book, written by two staffers at the Nation, is called, Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare. (Update Nov. 23: [...]
In a TODAY Show interview on Wednesday, Sept. 24, following a report on potentially misleading advertising materials for the prescription drug Latisse (actress and Allergan spokesperson Brooke Shields incorrectly stated that there were no side effects seen in the clinical trials of the product. Side effects have been documented in such trials and consumers should [...]
A report from the JTA: Australia’s national public broadcaster has apologized for a report that claimed Israel’s security fence was ruled to be illegal by the Supreme Court. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. apologized Wednesday to a Jewish lobby group and corrected an April 25 report which stated that “both the International Court of Justice and [...]
During a live portion of the TODAY show on Friday, April 3, 2009, Janice Lieberman stated that Ritz Camera is going out of business. To clarify, 300 of their stores are closing, and the remaining 400 will remain open. Link Report an error
Correction: In our on-air version of this story, we made a mistake by inadvertently showing the wrong house. We referred to it as the house where the arrested man lived, on Southeastern Avenue. It was instead the house of a neighbor. We have put a procedure into place to prevent this from happening again and we regret [...]
A story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: A Crafton man is suing WPXI-TV over a broadcast story that he claims used his photo when the story was about another man with the same last name. The story, broadcast Sept. 28, was about a South Fayette teacher and coach who resigned last year over what the school [...]
Comedian Andy Kindler, a frequent guest and occasional correspondent on David Letterman’s show, recently dedicated part of his time on the Late Show to complain about a misquote in Montreal’s daily English language paper, The Gazette. Kindler was interviewed by Gazette columnist Bill Brownstein back in January for a piece about how comics would handle [...]
One U.K. television station and U.K. eight newspapers have published/aired apologies and paid damages after they falsely reported that a child’s birthday party had spun wildly out of control due to its promotion on Facebook. In reality, “only very minor damage was caused”during the party, it was never promoted on Facebook, no alcohol was served, [...]
Keith Olbermann issued an on air correction this week: News Cycle reports that the transcript has been corrected. Report an error
From TVNewser (pic is theirs as well): A few tipsters noted the error last night in the Nightly News segment about author James Brady (a picture of the former press secretary was used). Minutes later, Brian Williams said: “Quick note here. As you might have noted last segment we briefly showed the wrong photo when [...]
In a report that aired on Nightly News on Wednesday January 21, we reported that “Power Bars” were among the types of peanut-containing food stuffs that had been recalled because of possible Salmonella contamination. The report should have said “energy bars.” Power Bar is a copyrighted brand and to the best of our knowledge no [...]
CNN has come up with a rather unique way to atone for a mistake: free advertising. TVNewser spotted this story by Pacific News Center: Guam – CNN has agreed to provide free air time for commercials touting Guam as a tourist destination to make up for the networks mistake in airing footage of Yap last [...]
A bit late, but still noteworthy: A note from Charlie Rose: Our annual obituary program on December 31st included erroneous information. We included the name of George Butler the filmmaker on the obituary list. George is alive and well in New Hampshire making a film about veterans returning from Afghanistan. The George Butler who died [...]
During a TODAY segment on Oct. 16 on Halloween savings, the K-Mart coupon for free Halloween candy was shown only to illustrate the types of deals and bargains consumers can find online. The K-Mart coupon shown on the air expired on 10/31/07 and is not a current coupon and cannot redeemed at K-Mart stores. Link [...]
