I’m a bit late to this one, but Doug Fisher at Common Sense Journalism spotted a November article in the Wall Street Journal that contained a multitude of errors, some of which have been corrected by the paper. Others remain. Fisher’s post on the mistakes is worth reading, if only to count the mistakes. Fisher begins:
The well-worn saying is that those who fail to heed history are doomed to repeat it.
This recent effort by the Wall Street Journal, however, shows that those who go about repeating it need to remember to study it carefully first.
There was a little factual spillage in the Nov. 15 Wonder Land column by Daniel Henninger, “1968: The Long Goodbye.” And apparently all the copy editors had gone on break and there was no one to clean it up. (Warning: Parts of the online offering have since been cleaned up, but as of this posting there still is enough mayhem for a good frolic through the history books — or, as those of us my age like to call it, recent memory.)
Here are the two corrections published by the Journal:
The Nov. 15 column by Daniel Henninger, “1968: The Long Goodbye,” incorrectly said that Robert Kennedy was assassinated in July 1968; it was June. Also, in some early editions it said that George Wallace had been shot dead campaigning for the presidency in 1972. He was shot and paralyzed. The error was corrected for later editions.
(WSJ Nov. 17, 2007)Daniel Henninger’s Nov. 15 column, “1968: The Long Goodbye,” said incorrectly that Eugene McCarthy defeated Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary that year. President Johnson received 48.6% of the vote to Sen. McCarthy’s 41.9%. President Johnson declined to put his name on the presidential preference ballot, and Sen. McCarthy won 20 of the state’s 24 delegates.
(WSJ Nov. 24, 2007)
Thanks for the tip, Jack!
