Comments for Regret the Error

Comment on No such thing as a “Medal of Honor winner” by Charlene

Charlene — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:45:09 +0000

It seems best to call them “Medal of Honor recipients”, not “winners”. Of course, you then have to remember to use the spelling “Honor” (and not change it to “Honour”) because it’s a proper name, and spelling variations have to be retained inside proper names.

Comment on No such thing as a “Medal of Honor winner” by Craig Silverman

Craig Silverman — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:58:23 +0000

Ah, true. Nice catch. BTW the above is a blog post, not a correction. But I suppose the blog post now requires a correction…

Comment on No such thing as a “Medal of Honor winner” by Chris

Chris — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:54:03 +0000

Unfortunately he repeated the error in the first sentence of the correction…

Comment on The forgotten war by seattletimes

seattletimes — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:12:40 +0000

[...] for the first time in years. This story??s original headline, ???Marines go to Afghanistan fohttp://www.regrettheerror.com/newspapers/the-forgotten-warMicroscopic takeover bid drags on Seattle TimesThe takeover attempt plods along for months. The [...]

Comment on NY Daily News tries to scrub away a bad error by Wenalway

Wenalway — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:15:06 +0000

If you follow sports closely, you’ll come to discover it’s a common occurrence for many sports sections to employ this practice.

The print editions frequently avoid running corrections, even when someone calls them on an error.

I have little doubt that a thorough audit of a cross-section of U.S. sports sections would reveal any number of errors that were never corrected and perhaps even repeated.

Comment on Wash Post’s kids poetry contest marred by plagiarism — again by WaPo’s Poetry Kids Ripping Off Shel Silverstein and Louis Phillips / Jossip

Mon, 05 May 2008 16:14:14 +0000

[...] inspired by, but not credited to, Louis Phillips, who wrote “The Eraser Poem.”” [WaPo via RTE] May 5, 2008 · Link · Respond Related Posts • 04.16.08: At Harry Potter [...]

Comment on Delicious peyote mushrooms by Charlene

Charlene — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:05:29 +0000

What I find interesting about these obituaries is that they either gloss over or omit Hofmann’s work in developing the family of drugs of which Pitocin is the best-known member. Pitocin may have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and prevented tens of millions of otherwise necessary hysterectomies worldwide.

I suppose being part of the team that saved that many lives doesn’t sound as interesting as creating a recreational drug, but it does seem more important by far.

Comment on “In a way it is surprising that we do not make more mistakes.” by tokyotoe

tokyotoe — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:17:37 +0000

Shurely it’s “you have fewer people”
tt

Comment on Regret the Interview: A corrections Q&A with Toronto Star Public Editor Kathy English by StanleyBostitch

StanleyBostitch — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:02:33 +0000

Great interview. Very interesting, thanks!

Comment on Regret the Interview: A corrections Q&A with Toronto Star Public Editor Kathy English by Craig Silverman

Craig Silverman — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:30:59 +0000

Wish I could say it was a test. It was a typo. I’ve fixed it and added it to my Editor’s Note. Thanks!

Comment on Regret the Interview: A corrections Q&A with Toronto Star Public Editor Kathy English by Eric Klister

Eric Klister — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:54:55 +0000

Is that a typo in your headline or are you just testing us?

Comment on Regret the Interview: A corrections Q&A with Toronto Star Public Editor Kathy English by Dave Brooks

Dave Brooks — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:03:52 +0000

I think you’re missing a “few” in this sentence

” …one of very media outlets in the country that has a full-time public editor/ombudsman”

Comment on The forgotten war by Doug Winship

Doug Winship — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:44:45 +0000

I find this correction rather confusing.
It seems to me that the initial story is in fact correct, and the correction is the result of a woeful understanding of the military and the war effort on the part of the
Seattle Times.
Yes, the U.S. Military has been in Afghanistan continuously since 2001. But In November 2007 (at least) the Marine strength in country was about 300, and they do not appear to have been in the south. Some US units probably have been in the south, but not Marines.
To simply say that US forces have been in Afghanistan is immaterial. The statement that was retracted was that the Marines are deploying to an area of operations for which they have not been responsible recently.
what is the word for a correction that takes a true story and makes it false?

Comment on “In a way it is surprising that we do not make more mistakes.” by TootsNYC

TootsNYC — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:01:01 +0000

Wait–about that misspelling of Degas:

“crime of PUTTING an acute accent on the artist Edgar Degas’ surname in last week’s paper, held his hand up to the offence but pointed out that he had been working on seven different pages under severe time pressure,” Marsh writes. “Doubtless he had corrected many mistakes but the one he MISSED was…”

Did he PUT the accent on, or did he read over an existing accent, thereby MISSING it?

The mistake that still embarrasses me, more than 20 years later, is actively misspelling a word (kernal, instead of kernel). The reason I’m still mortified is that it’s rare for copyeditors to CREATE mistakes.

But it’s not that rare to read right over something, trusting that the reporter got it right in the first place.

Which did he do? I wish Marsh had made that clearer (not good copyediting, that paragraph).

I think it makes a difference.

Marsh wrote; “like most golden ages, this one was entirely mythical.”

I agree w/ him.

Comment on Missing, not dead by Electric Fishwrap › Site’s I love

Electric Fishwrap › Site’s I love — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:25:24 +0000

[...] papers and their corrections. It’s amazing to see how many papers mistakenly claim someone is dead, rather than missing or whatever. RtE also writes a plagiarism roundup at the end of the [...]