Regret the Error

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  Report an error

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 [...]

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 [...]

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  Report an error

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 [...]

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 [...]

An editorial in Friday’s paper incorrectly stated that Florida Cresswell, a candidate for state representative in the 28th District, was convicted in 1999 of battery and stealing Tupperware. In fact he was convicted of stealing a battery from a van as well as Tupperware that was inside the van. Link  Report an error

Are corrections a good indicator of a larger problem? That was one of the questions we posed to Seth Mnookin in a recent interview. Now two journalists are using corrections to question the competence of New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley. First, Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune penned a Sunday column that listed [...]

Early Tuesday morning, several top editors from the Chicago Tribune were hard at work removing a section from that day’s paper. Once you can get past the image of highly-paid newspaper folks on their hands and knees physically yanking a section out of thousands of copies, the question of “why” becomes important. The answer: because [...]