The Chicago Tribune published a slideshow of photos from Lollapalooza. And someone managed to mangle the name of a band that was shown… holding up signs bearing its name:
It’s been fixed.
The image is courtesy of The Hood Internet’s Twitter feed.
Thanks, Julia!
A Page 1 story Friday on Beccah Beushausen’s Internet hoax about a terminally ill baby described her as a social worker. While she has worked in social services, she says she is not a licensed social worker. The Tribune confirmed that she has worked at women’s crisis centers in Tinley Park and Pittsburgh. Also, the caption with a photo from Beushausen’s blog said the woman pictured was not her. That’s what Beushausen initially told the Tribune, but the charity that took the picture said it was indeed her, and she later acknowledged that she was the woman in the picture. Link
Steve Chapman’s Commentary column on Sunday indicated that women have a Y chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes. Link
A Feb. 24 article that collated Internet comments in reaction to Rick Santelli’s self-described rant protesting President Barack Obama’s mortgage bailout plan included pro-Santelli remarks incorrectly attributed to “John Groskopf, Vernon Hills.” Mr. Groskopf says that he did not make those remarks, and the Tribune failed to confirm the identity of the person quoted.
Correction April 2: The headline of this post originally and incorrectly referred to John Groskop rather than John Groskopf. I regret the error. Thanks, Charlene!
In a Perspective piece by Gary Fields, professor of communications at the University of California, San Diego, that ran in Feb. 22, 2004, editions of the Chicago Tribune, an unverified quote was used and attributed to the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon. The op-ed quoted Yaalon as saying that “the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” While cited frequently over the years, this quote does not appear in the Israeli newspaper article to which it has been attributed, and the writer of that article said Yaalon did not say this. Fields could not confirm the origin of the quote. A spokesman for Yaalon said Thursday that Yaalon was misquoted and did not say the sentence attributed to him. Since the exact origin of the quotation has not been found and verified, it should not have been used in the Tribune. Link
In Monday’s Live! section, a story about Michelle Obama’s eyebrows may have left readers with the impression that Bill O’Reilly referred directly to her eyebrows when he said she looks angry. It was a guest on his show Sept. 16 who responded that some people say she looks angry perhaps because of the cast of her eyebrows. Link
A story about treatment of children with colds in Tuesday’s Chicagoland coverage said buckwheat honey can be given to children of all ages for sore throat. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against honey for children under 1. Link
A photo on Page 11 of Sunday’s Chicago Tribune Magazine was incorrectly identified as venture capitalist Eric Olson. The photo that accompanied the feature about Eric Olson was of a different Eric Olson. Here is the correct picture.
UPDATE: Also note this Aug. 20 correction from the Denver Post:
Because of an error by a source, an interview with former Peace Corps volunteer John E. Roberts that appeared on Page 6B Sunday was accompanied by a photograph of a different individual, also named John Roberts.
A “clarification” the Tribune’s “Guy Page” feature:
On this page about two years ago, I declared the Travel Channel’s Samantha Brown to be the most beautiful woman on TV. That was part of my rebellion against all the plastic people whom pop culture would have us believe are beautiful. The one slight asterisk with Brown was that I wasn’t sure if there was a hip issue or if it was the wide-screen TV’s fault. Hey, I was just doing a complete report. Beauty is a factor in visual media.
Having now spent a little time with her in a professional interview, I would like to offer this clarification. There is no hip issue; it was the TV. And her personality is even better off-camera.
A July 29 Campaign Digest item incorrectly said that Sen. John McCain is a melanoma survivor who suffered severe sun damage from his years in Vietnamese prison camps. In fact, McCain was in solitary confinement for more than two of the 51/2 years he was in Hanoi, and his exposure to the sun while in captivity was extremely rare, according to his campaign staff. McCain has said many times that he got many sunburns as a youth, which likely led to melanoma later in life. Link
The Tempo cover page on Tuesday featured a 6-column photograph of a woman walking and texting on her phone; the photo accompanied a story about people who text as they walk. The image appeared to be a documentary image, but was actually a staged photograph of a Tribune intern taken to illustrate a story about texting. The photo carried a credit line, “Tribune photo illustration, ” but that was insufficient to meet Tribune standards that require photo illustrations to be constructed so that they cannot be confused with documentary photographs. Link
As you’re no doubt aware, a photograph purporting to show the successful test firing of four missiles by Iran was revealed to have been manipulated. In fact, only three missiles were successfully fired. The image, provided by the Iranian government, was distributed by Agence-France Presse and used by many media outlets. You can view some front pages here.
Photo District News published a good story on Thursday, the day the photo was exposed:
…Photo editors in the U.S. variously blamed themselves and AFP, a respected photo agency, for not catching the photo.
“AFP should have caught it, really,” says Tim Rasmussen, assistant managing editor for photography at the Denver Post, which ran the photo on A1. “It should never have gotten past them.”
But another Post editor was miffed that he failed to catch it. “Oh, I hate days like this,” said Ken Lyons, the paper’s front-page photo editor. “It was right there in front of me. I should have seen it.” …
Catching some of the heat Thursday was Getty Images, which distributes AFP in the U.S. Getty director of photography Pancho Bernasconi says the AFP content arrives through an automatic feed and Getty does not edit it.
Some newspapers made it clear in their captions or credit lines that the photo was provided by the Iranian government. Others did not. The Denver Post ran the image as its lead art and credited it to AFP/Getty; the Baltimore Sun ran the photo on page 1 and credited it to Agence France Presse.
Early Thursday on the East Coast, more than 12 hours after the AFP image had been distributed, the Associated Press moved a nearly identical photo showing three missiles. It appears to have been photographed a fraction of a second apart from the AFP image. In a news story, the AP said it obtained the photo from the same Iranian Web site from which the AFP obtained theirs.
The first person to call foul on the photo appears to have been the political blog Little Green Footballs, which spotted the manipulation Wednesday. It took until Thursday for word to spread widely through sites like The Drudge Report and The New York Times. The AFP correction ran shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday on the East Coast.
UPDATE July 17: A reader wrote in to note that militaryphotos.net, not Little Green Footballs, was the first “to call foul” on the photo. You can read the post here. Thanks, Dominik!
And here are the corrections I’ve seen thus far (AFP corrected/retracted its image on Thursday):
On Page 1 Thursday, a photo released by the Iranian government accompanying a story about Iran’s test-firing of missiles was apparently digitally manipulated to include four missiles. Another image was released Thursday that shows three missiles. A story about the photo appears on Page 12. Link
A photograph of the test firing of missiles released by the public relations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Sepah News, which ran on the front page of yesterday’s editions of The Sun had been digitally altered. The Sun was unaware of this manipulation. The photograph above is the correct image, which shows one missile remaining in the launcher. Link
Iran missile test: A photo from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that accompanied an article in Thursday’s Section A about the country’s test of medium- and long-range missiles apparently was digitally altered to show four missiles successfully launching. It later became clear that the original photo showed only three rockets. News coverage on A1 and A4. Link
A related correction:
In some broadcasts, we did not note that the Web site Little Green Footballs had posted an item Wednesday evening declaring that the photograph of the Iranian missile launch had been doctored — before The New York Times published its analysis Thursday morning. Link
A Tempo story on Wednesday about 50 favorite magazines included an item about Vanity Fair that incorrectly overstated the degree of actress Miley Cyrus’ state of undress in a controversial photo shoot this year. She did not “bare all.” The story also listed Golf for Women; the July-August issue is available, but publisher Conde Nast has announced that the magazine will close. Link
The New York Times made a similar error.
A map on page 12 of Section 1 on Thursday located the Golan Heights and erroneously showed an Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon that no longer exists. Link
A campaign story in some editions Saturday mistakenly referred to Cuba’s Fidel Castro as dead. Link
An article in Wednesday’s Metro section about a talk that Medill School of Journalism Dean John Lavine gave to alumni contained several errors.
Lavine — who spoke about the controversy over his use of an anonymous student quote in a piece he wrote for an alumni magazine — was incorrectly quoted about what he said he should have done instead. The accurate quote is: “I should have immediately said, ‘Oh, wait a minute, we never not name somebody; don’t quote a student and say ‘a student said quote.’ Don’t do that…’ ”
Lavine was misquoted when talking about a columnist for the Daily Northwestern student paper. The accurate quote is: “The student that wrote the column did exactly what I hope our students do.”
A paraphrase incorrectly characterized Lavine’s comments about changes in the journalism industry. The dean was referring to the changing journalism industry, not his mistake, when he said “this is part of something that will be with us for the rest of our lives.”
The article inaccurately reported Lavine’s comments about the columnist for the student paper. Lavine said the columnist for the school paper was upset about the changes at the school, not specifically about putting more resources into advertising and marketing at the school. Link
A story on Page 24 of Saturday’s Main News section misidentified Frances Iglehart as a reverend and as a man. Also, the church is no longer used by the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation or Korean or Latino congregations. Link
A correction from the paper’s online corrections page:
An obituary for Ken O’Brien in Wednesday’s Metro section included a headline that incorrectly stated the year of his death. O’Brien died in 2008. A corrected obituary appears today.
The correction found at the top of the online version of the story :
This corrected obituary replaces an erroneous obituary published March 5, 2008. The original obituary has been deleted from the archives.
Why delete an obituary due to an incorrect date? Were there other errors? As for the obituary, it’s about a freelance journalist who worked for, yes, the Chicago Tribune.
On the front page of Monday’s Business section, a headline inaccurately said that three Los Angeles Times editors have been fired. They each left the top post of editor under different circumstances. Link
A timeline of Barry Manilow’s career in Friday’s On the Town section mischaracterized Bruce Johnston as a Beach Boys sideman. He is a member of the Beach Boys. Link
In the editorial “Spelling, 21st-Century style” on Tuesday, the wrong phrases were used to demonstrate how the Oxford University Press updated its dictionary. The phrases should have been “free rein” and the new entry “free reign” — not “rein in” and “reign in.” Also, the dictionary includes some misspelled or misused words because they are so common or have a historical precedent, not because they are correct. Link
In some editions of today’s Home & Garden section, the photographs of four leaves on an inside page were incorrectly identified. The photo of Leaf No. 12 is actually a Freeman maple; the photo of Leaf No. 13 is an American elm; Leaf No. 14 is a northern red oak; Leaf No. 15 is an arrow-wood viburnum. The leaves and their correct identifying information are online at chicagotribune.com/fallleaves. Link
On the back page of some editions of Wednesday’s NBA special section, the score of the Spurs’ season-opening win over Portland was listed as “xxx-xxx.” San Antonio won 106-97. Link
We took a brief late summer vacation last week, but the corrections and accuracy news kept coming. So, enjoy some items of note from last week. And also read our other posts below for some notable corrections from last week.
Manipulated War Photos?
This big ongoing story relates to accusations against news organizations for running doctored war photos from the middle east. All this started when Reuters contributing photographer Adnan Hajj was found to have altered photos taken of the war in Lebanon. Reuters subsequently dismissed him and removed his photos from its databases. Accusations against other photographers have now started to fly. A round-up here and more here.
Wired News Removes Three Stories After Discovering Freelancer Fabricated Sources
The online news source has, for the second time in a little more than a year, had to investigate the work of a freelance contributor. Last year’s investigation resulted in Wired placing editor’s notes in 24 of freelancer Michelle Delio’s articles. Then on August 9 it announced a similar investigation had turned up problems with another writer:
Wired News has removed three articles from its website after an internal investigation failed to confirm the authenticity of a source
used in the stories. “Tribal Curse Haunts Launch Pad” (June 27, 2006), “NASA Boosts Heart-Monitoring Tech” (July 7, 2006) and “Don’t Flush It — Breathe It” (July 14, 2006), all by Philip Chien, relied in part on quotes and citations from Robert Ash, described in the first two stories as a “space historian” and in the last as an “aeronautical engineer and amateur space historian.”
In a phone conversation with Wired News editors, Chien had identified Ash as a professor of aeronautical engineering at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Reached by phone this week, Ash said he is not a space historian and has never participated in interviews with Chien. Ash is an aeronautical engineering professor at the university and has been involved in numerous NASA projects.
Chien is a freelance space reporter who has worked for online, print and television news outlets, and recently authored a book on the Columbia space shuttle disaster. He’s written seven stories for Wired News, two of them in 2004, the other five in the past few weeks…
The article explains more about how Wired discovered problems with Chien’s work. But of interest here is that Wired News instituted a new policy requiring all writers to submit contact information for each source in a story. It appears that the publication then conducts random checks with these sources, or follows up when they suspect something isn’t kosher.
Chicago Tribune Condemns The Wrong Eddie Johnson
The paper that last year managed to misidentify two Chicago men as mobsters two days in a row made another egregious mistaken ID last week. A former NBA player named Eddie Johnson was charged with sexual assault. But there are two Eddie Johnsons who played in the NBA, and the Tribune, rushing to get the news item in the paper before deadline, chose the wrong one. The mistaken Johnson told AP that it was the worst day of his life. “Devastating. Hard to explain,” he told the news service.
The day after its error, the Tribune ran an editor’s note and a correction. The editor’s note/apology:
Haste to make deadline is no excuse for putting incorrect information in a newspaper. Factual errors erode a paper’s credibility.
We made an inadvertent but hurtful error Tuesday night in an effort to get as much news as possible into Wednesday’s final edition of the Tribune sports section, and we would like to apologize to Eddie Johnson, his family and friends, and our readers.
An Associated Press story detailing the arrest of “former NBA All-Star Eddie Johnson” moved across the wire late Tuesday, and a decision was made to get it into the “Press Box” segment of the sports section, where our sports briefs go.
In Chicago, former NBA star Eddie Johnson means Eddie Johnson, 47, a 6-foot-7-inch forward from Westinghouse High School and the University of Illinois, the Eddie Johnson who went on to a 17-year pro career with seven NBA teams. The Eddie Johnson who was distinguished as much by good citizenship and charity work as by 19,202 career points, a 16-point scoring average and the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Award he won with the Phoenix Suns in 1988-89.
Unfortunately, the man arrested Tuesday was “the other” Eddie Johnson, 51, a 6-2 guard from Auburn who had a 10-year career with three NBA teams and has been in and out of trouble with the law since he quit playing in 1987.
In the last paragraph of the wire story, “the other” Eddie Johnson was identified correctly as a former Atlanta Hawks
All-Star who played college ball at Auburn. But in our haste to make deadline, we failed to make the distinction.
The Ocala, Fla., dateline should have been one tipoff. Chicago’s Eddie Johnson lives in Phoenix and works as a television analyst for the Suns. The charges–sexual battery on a child younger than 12 and residential burglary–should have been not a tipoff but a red flag. Anyone who knows or has had even limited contact with Chicago’s Eddie Johnson would find it unfathomable that he would be linked to such behavior.
“It has happened before” in other media, Johnson said Wednesday from his home in Phoenix. “The other guy keeps getting in trouble, and since I’m the more visible of the two, it keeps coming back to me.”
For the record, Chicago’s Eddie Johnson remains extensively involved in charity work, including motivational speaking and basketball clinics for kids. In addition to his broadcasting duties, he is president of a Phoenix telecommunications firm. He got his degree from Illinois in 1981, and he was and is regarded as one of the NBA’s model citizens.
Again, we apologize.
“It has been a tough day,” Johnson said, “but I appreciate you trying to set the record straight.”
And it looks like the South Florida Sun-Sentinel made the same error:
An item in the Briefing on Page 2C of Thursday’s Sports section did not make clear the identity of a former NBA player who has been charged with sexual assault, according to police in Ocala. The former NBA player charged, Eddie Johnson, played in the NBA from 1977-87 with the Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Seattle SuperSonics. He is not to be confused with the Eddie Johnson who is now a television analyst with one of his former teams, the Phoenix Suns. Link
An amusing correction from the New York Post’s Page Six:
August 10, 2006 – LARRY David and his wife, Laurie, must have pretty convincing doubles. The testy comic says yesterday’s
report from our spy that David went ballistic when his BMW was hit by a shopping cart on Martha’s Vineyard is “so fantastical, I’m considering hiring your source for my show . . . none of it is true.” Worse, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star says, “the most egregious error was that they had me wearing shorts, an item of clothing that hasn’t been on my body since I started growing hair.” Link
Our obsessive cataloging of corrections occasionally enables us to spot a pattern. Whether it’s the failure of newspapers to identify someone they initially misidentified in a photo, or the inability of newspapers to accurately report on, well, newspapers, we sometimes feel as though we’re listening to a broken record. Such was the case when we spotted this correction in the Washington Post:
A May 14 article about Sen. John McCain’s speech at Liberty University incorrectly referred to the chairman of Focus on the Family as the Rev. James Dobson. Dobson is not an ordained minister.
We knew we’d read that one before. (The GetReligion blog also felt a sense of déjà vu.) So we fired up Nexis, did a search for “James Dobson and correction,” and were less than shocked to turn up more than 20 similar corrections going back to 1989. What publication ran that 1989 correction, you ask? The Washington Post. GetReligion also spotted two recent Newsweek corrections that we have included below. So here they are in all their glory: The James Dobson Is Not A Reverend/Minister/Evangelical Corrections. Bow your heads and pray we never see another one.
Roll Call
May 11, 2006
In the May 10 edition of “Heard on the Hill,” James Dobson of Focus on the Family was misidentified as a reverend. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in the field of child development.The San Diego Union-Tribune
April 27, 2006
A headline April 20 with a story about the 70th birthday of Dr. James Dobson misidentified him as an evangelist. A child psychologist and best-selling author, he is the founder and chairman of Focus on Family, a nonprofit Christian ministry that helps families.Newsweek
Feb. 20, 2006
In the Feb. 13 article “God’s Green Soldiers,” we incorrectly identified James Dobson as a reverend. He in fact has a Ph.D. in child psychology and goes by Dr. Dobson. Newsweek regrets the [error].Wall Street Journal
November 5, 2005
Correction of Oct 28 page-one article; James Dobson is psychologist and chairman of Focus on the FamilySun-Sentinel
August 17, 2005
A July 12 column by Michael Mayo on Page 1B of the Local section, about the Broward schools SpongeBob video controversy, contained two errors. Activist James Dobson is not a reverend, and Dobson did not assert that the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is gay.Newsweek
Aug. 8, 2005
In our Aug. 1 issue, a sidebar on lobbying groups (“A
User’s Guide to the Groups”) incorrect[ly] identifies James Dobson as a
reverend. He in fact has a Ph.D. in child psychology and goes by Dr.
Dobson. Newsweek regrets the error.Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
August 6, 2005
Headline clarified: In a headline in Thursday’s editions, James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization that focuses on Christian values in the home, was called a minister. Although he runs a ministry, his degrees are in psychology as well as marriage and family counseling.The Cincinnati Enquirer
June 10, 2005
Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, is a psychologist, author and radio broadcaster. A June 3 story on the 2nd Congressional District race misidentified him.The Kansas City Star
March 9, 2005
An item in The Buzz on Sunday incorrectly referred to James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, as “the Rev. James Dobson.”St. Petersburg Times
January 29, 2005
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson is a psychologist and a marriage, family and child counselor. A column Friday stated an incorrect profession.The San Francisco Chronicle
October 3, 2004
Articles on March 14 and Sept. 19 erroneously used the title “the Rev.” for James Dobson, the founder of the Focus on the Family. Dobson is not ordained.Slate Magazine
January 23, 2004
In a Jan. 19 Chatterbox column, Timothy Noah erroneously referred to the Rev. James Dobson. Dobson is actually a lay Ph.D. (in child development), not an ordained minister.Chicago Tribune
September 4, 2003
In a story Friday on Page 8 of the main news section, James Dobson, head of the Colorado-based family advocacy group Focus on the Family was misidentified with the title “Rev.” and called an evangelist. He is neither an ordained minister nor an evangelist.Austin American-Statesman
February 21, 2003
Page B1 of Sunday’s Metro & State section, a story about religious groups debating the issue of homosexuality misidentified James Dobson, founder and president of Focus on the Family. He is not a minister.The Montgomery Advertiser
November 9, 2002
Setting it straight: A story in the Oct. 13 edition of the Montgomery Advertiser used an incorrect professional title in reference to James Dobson, founder of the Focus on the Family ministry. Dobson is not a reverend. He holds a doctorate in child development.Wall Street Journal
May 11, 2001
Correction of May 9 Politics & Policy article, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, oversees a radio ministry, but he is not an ordained minister.The Nation
October 30, 2000
In Alexander Cockburn’s October 2 “Beat the Devil,” Focus on the Family’s president, James Dobson, was erroneously referred to as a “Reverend.”Kansas City Star
November 23, 1996
Because of a reporter’s error, religious broadcaster James Dobson was identified as a minister in an Oct. 27 profile of Sam Brownback, successful candidate for U.S. Senate. Dobson is a licensed psychologist. The profile also implied that the organization Dobson heads, Focus on the Family, supported Brownback’s candidacy. Dobson made a personal endorsement of Brownback; Focus on the Family does not endorse candidates.Chicago Tribune
October 31, 1995
An editorial Thursday incorrectly referred to the head of Focus on the Family as Rev. James Dobson. He is not a minister.Orange County Register
March 2, 1993
James Dobson is a Christian counselor. Because of a reporting error, Dobson was misidentified in a story in the Metro section of Monday’s editions of The Orange County Register.The Houston Chronicle
January 19, 1993
A story Sunday incorrectly described James Dobson, the head of a Colorado Springs, Colo., evangelical ministry, as a member of the clergy. He is a psychologist.The Washington Post
June 13, 1989
In a report yesterday about the Moral Majority, James Dobson was identified incorrectly as a minister. He has a PhD in clinical psychology.
