This, from a local Fox affiliate, may be the worst one I’ve come across (Update: actually, have a look at this video lower down in the post):

Reporting that President Obama has been killed instead of Bin Laden? Yeah, pretty bad. Then there’s this tweet from MSNBC correspondent Norah O’Donnell (thanks, Mallary!):

Gizmodo also has examples from the BBC and a different Fox affiliate than the one featured above. The Fox station later posted a story about all of the Obama/Osama mixups. It mentioned the other Fox affiliate as well as errors from CNN, the Modesto Bee, ABC News and Fox News. And after all of that, they admitted their mistake:

FOX40 also briefly had a graphic up with the wrong name. The original graphic talked about “OBAMA NATIONAL SECURITY ANNOUNCEMENT” and the B remained when it was changed to “OSAMA BIN LADEN.” Station management apologized for the error, as did the network anchors.

What else? Here’s a CNN typo talking about “Obama’s compound” in Pakistan:

Sky News declaring Obama’s death:

Update May 2: Here’s an example from NPR (thanks, Parker!):

Update May 3: A correction from the Charlotte Observer:

A front-page story in some editions Monday incorrectly referred to Osama bin Laden as Obama. In the same story, a photograph cutline wrongly said two aircraft hit the same tower of the World Trade Center. The planes hit different towers. Link

Update May 4: The South China Morning Post published this incorrect correction today:

In a headline on page A2 yesterday, the US president’s first name was erroneously given instead of that of Osama bin Laden. We apologise for the error.

Why is it incorrect? Because the paper made an Obama/Osama error — and that involves the US president’s last name.

Update #2: Huffington Post put together a great video compilation of all the on air flubs:

This may in fact be the worst on air Obama/Osama mixup of all. As New York magazine noted in its headline, “News Anchor Made ‘Osama’/‘Obama’ Gaffe Three Times in Seventeen Seconds.” Part of it is included in the above HuffPo compilation, but this is the full version. From Global TV in Canada

Update May 5: Yet another correction from the Charlotte Observer:

In some editions Wednesday, a front page story about tensions between the U.S. and Pakistani governments incorrectly referred to Osama bin Laden as Obama.

Update May 8: A May 6 correction from the Guardian:

An article meant to name Osama bin Laden, but instead said: “Asked on Wednesday whether the team that killed Obama had come under fire, (Jay) Carney said the White House had gone to the limit in providing details and that any more would risk future operations” (Photos reveal gruesome aftermath of Bin Laden raid, 5 May, page 9 turn from page 1, early editions). Link

Update May 11: From the Sacramento Bee:

A Washington Post story on Page A12 on May 2 and a McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau story on Page A13 on May 6 mistakenly used the name Obama instead of Osama in references to Osama bin Laden. Link

Here’s the apology:

ABC News apologizes for any harm caused to you as a result of its broadcast of a video clip that ABC News stated was of you speaking about yourself when in fact you were talking about a hypothetical person. ABC News regrets that it did not conduct sufficient investigation of the clip after receiving it to establish its correct context. By presenting the footage out of context, ABC News misled its audience and failed to meet its own standards, which ABC deeply regrets.

Adds Gawker:

20/20 made an on-air apology shortly after the episode aired. But today, to settle a legal challenge from Price, ABC News issued a written statement apologizing for the segment and acknowledging that the piece “misled its audience and failed to meet its own standards.”

A press release about the apology was issued by Dr. Price, and it included this quote from his daughter:

Watching the ABC story was really devastating to our family and our church. We couldn’t believe that such a highly respected company as ABC News would do such a thing. It was a long time coming, but we are happy and grateful that ABC has finally acknowledged that it misled its audience and that it failed to meet its own standards.

…This review was extremely sensitive, as it required going back to confidential sources in this country and abroad. It also involved traveling to Pakistan to confirm first-hand the circumstances of Mr. Debat’s work there. Early in our review, we learned that there were other interviews Mr. Debat had published in France that the subjects denied had been conducted. We reported this story immediately on ABC News.com. We have now completed our review. After going through all of the stories Mr. Debat worked on for ABC News, we found no instances of false reporting. Mr. Debat was not the sole source for anything ABC News reported. Moreover, we confirmed with Mr. Debat’s confidential sources that they had given him the information as he’d claimed in contributing to our reports. We also confirmed that Mr. Debat traveled to the locations in Pakistan as he had claimed and talked with the sources he had identified.
Our review did uncover four details of Mr. Debat’s reporting that we couldn’t confirm. In one case, he mis-identified which branch of U.S. Special forces had engaged in a particular operation, although we did confirm the other facts surrounding the operation. We also found disagreements over the location for two meetings reported on by Mr. Debat, although, again, we could confirm the other facts surrounding the meetings. And, one of the people whom Mr. Debat identified as attending a meeting would neither confirm nor deny that he/she was a direct participant. None of these discrepancies would rise to the level of a formal, on-air retraction because none of them was material to the substance of our report.

So none of the stories he worked on need to be retracted, but does this mean ABC News won’t inform viewers of its findings? Why not explain the detailed investigation that took place?

Also, an AP story about the memo that ABC has on its website seems to have a misleading headline. (This appears to be AP’s doing, not ABC’s; see here.) It reads, “ABC: No Errors Tied to ‘Fake’ Consultant.” But Westin’s memo clearly states that there are details and facts that can’t be confirmed. Is that really the same as “no errors”? Also, the AP story does not detail the discrepancies outlined in the memo. Why not?

ABC News is also instituting changes to its practices:

There are three changes we are making in our internal practices based on what we’ve learned from this case.
Starting immediately, we will include both our News Practices team and the corporate Human Resources Department in the hiring of all consultants, reviewing in particular claims of prior employment and educational history. We will also undertake a review of current consultants where appropriate.
When we hire a consultant, we will make a determination of exactly how that person will be identified on all programs and platforms.
News Practices will be alerted each time that we include a consultant in our reporting to ensure that the consultant is being used and identified properly.
We undertake extensive efforts in all of our reporting — and particularly in our investigative reporting — to check and double-check information we are given so that no one source can compromise the truth of what we present to our audiences. Based on our review, our overall systems and procedures worked in the case of Mr. Debat. Nothing in our review, of course, condones the instances of resume enhancement or fake interviews that Mr. Debat published elsewhere.

*Correction November 4, 2007: The headline of this post originally misspelled “Alexis” as “Aexis.” It was corrected after a reader brought the error to light.

There are glaring errors in Alessandra Stanley’s column today. For the record, Charlie Gibson was in Washington, DC for the State of the Union (not at his desk in New York as Stanley wrote). He anchored both "World News" and ABC’s primetime coverage of the President’s speech from Capitol Hill. Following the speech, he interviewed Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain…

NY Times correction:

The TV Watch column yesterday about reports from Iraq by the NBC anchor Brian Williams, and the competition among NBC, ABC and CBS to draw viewers to their evening news programs, referred incorrectly to coverage of President Bush’s State of the Union address in January by Charles Gibson, the ABC anchor. He covered it from Washington, not “from his desk in New York.”

Okay, so we’re one for one as of now. Except the ABC letter continued on:

Stanley also falsely asserts that since Gibson took over as anchor in late May, he anchors solely from New York City. That is demonstrably untrue. Gibson has reported from: The Middle East to cover the escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah, including from Jerusalem, the Israeli-Lebanese border and Larnaca, Cyprus (July 16-19); from New Orleans for the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (August 28 &29); from Nickel Mines, PA to cover the Amish school shooting (October 3); from Amman, Jordan for Bush-Maliki summit (November 29 & 30); from Washington, DC, when the 110th Congress convened (January 4); and from Philadelphia (October 5), Boston (October 24), Dallas (November 13), Houston (November 14), Atlanta (November 15&16), Detroit (January 29 & 30), and Chicago (February 12 & 13).

How did Stanley assert that Gibson "anchors solely from New York City"? Here’s the relevant text from her column:

Mr. Gibson hasn’t exactly overexerted himself in his new job. He was the only anchor who didn’t go to Washington to interview Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House. (He entrusted Terry Moran with the task.) He also stayed put for the tornadoes that devastated Florida in early February…

This is where we begin to deal with a more subjective view of error. Anyone reading the above sentences, especially when coupled with the erroneous statement that Gibson was in New York for the State of the Union address, would clearly understand Stanley is suggesting Gibson is a bit of a homebody who doesn’t leave the anchor desk to cover stories. But does she specifically say that he only anchors from New York? No, although it’s also clear that’s what she’s saying.
These hair-splitting distinctions can be very important, but they can also be very frustrating for sources and those being written about. ABC is not going to be 100 percent happy with the correction offered because (and we’re guessing here) it will feel that the article made unfair assertions about Gibson based on inaccurate information. The Times is being strict in only correcting the one clearly stated factual error. The issue of fairness goes uncorrected. This is common; fairness is a difficult, subjective thing to assess and correct.
In this case, we have a media-on-media error and that’s one of the reasons why there has been so much blog chatter. The other reason for the extra attention is that the author is Alessandra Stanley.
In the end, this is a very telling example of why corrections are and aren’t given for certain requests. Was it unfair and incorrect to suggest that Gibson is largely tethered to his NY desk? Based on the evidence supplied by ABC, it appears so. But the fact that the article only suggested this, albeit very clearly, turned ABC’s complaint into one that could be classified as subjective, even if it appears valid. This example shows the balancing act that corrections/section editors walk every day, and it also shows why sources who request corrections are not always pleased with what they receive.
ABC had one final complaint:

Finally, Stanley take a gratuitous and unfounded swipe at Gibson stating that he is on vacation while Williams reports from the Iraq. For the record, this is Gibson’s first vacation in ten months.

This is an issue of fairness and context, not fact. Stanley wrote, "This week, while Mr. Williams is in Iraq, Mr.Gibson is on vacation." That sentence is totally accurate. Yet it exists to drive home her questionable point about the supposedly lackadaisical Gibson. But she hasn’t made a factual error, and so no correction.

• “He was just an old guy who came on a mission, and I think he got what
  he wanted.”
• “I think he just went because he knew he wasn’t going to come out alive.”
• “You could tell that he wanted the females. He tapped me on the
  shoulder and he told me to leave the room. I told him, “I don’t want to
  leave.”

Unfortunately, Grigg’s mother later revealed that her son was not in the classroom. It’s possible that it all started when the boy told his father he was in the room and the father then relayed this to the Associated Press. At least that’s how this AP correction makes it sound:

In Sept. 27 stories about a deadly school shooting at Platte Canyon High School, The Associated Press quoted parent Tom Grigg giving an account of the ordeal he had heard from his 16-year-old son, Cassidy. Grigg said his son was in the classroom when the gunman picked out his female hostages and the teen had offered to stay with the girls — but the gunman warned him to get out.
The student’s mother said Cassidy Grigg lied.

As is often the case, the boy’s remarkable first person tale was quickly picked up by other outlets, and now the mass corrections/corrective articles have begun. This correction was posted on MSNBC.com:

A story published Thursday morning on MSNBC.com described a 16-year-old boy’s account of a hostage-taking at a Colorado high school in which a gunman fatally shot one girl before killing himself.
The story was based on comments the boy, Cassidy Grigg, made on the “Today” show and to other media outlets. Cassidy said he was in the classroom at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey on Wednesday when the gunman entered.
Cassidy’s mother, Larina Grigg, said Thursday that Cassidy had lied and was actually in another room at the time. Link

WRIC, a television station in Virginia, ran with the story but then received a “withhold” on it and put that online. (A question for TV people out there: would a “withhold” be sent out by the network in a situation like this?) WRIC eventually removed the text from its site. We found this in the Google News cache:

Stations: WITHHOLD all of the items on yesterday’s school shooting in Colorado in which student Cassidy Grigg is quoted as saying he was in the classroom when …

FOX News has a story up, as does the Rocky Mountain News, and many TV affiliates. The boy’s mother told one outlet, “He said, ‘Mom, all those kids were my friends and I just wanted so much to help them. … I guess I just made it up in my mind. I just wanted it to be true so bad’.”