Please enjoy these juvenile yet amusing Friday treats.
An unfortunate headline:
The headline has since been changed to read "Kiwanis present award." Boo. Thanks to Andrew and Deann! The image is via HuffPo.
And here’s an unfortunate choice of words from Martha Stewart Living, via Bike Snob NYC:
And here’s the graphic that accompanied it, also via Bike Snob NYC:
On December 6 we published a letter signed by A J Bennett that suggested Mayor Parker was a friend of David Henderson and that the Mayor had been photographed brandishing dildoes and “doobies” or marijuana joints. Through his legal counsel Mayor Parker has confirmed, and we accept, that he is not and never has been a personal friend of Mr Henderson and has never been photographed holding a dildo or a doobie. It was, in fact, a thin raffle ticket. The Press apologises to Mayor Parker for any embarrassment resulting from publishing those errors.
This definitely would have made the ‘08 Crunks if it had been published prior to my year-end post.
Thanks, Sally!
On Friday, Columbia Journalism Review online published my latest weekly column. Read it here. I also wrote a Saturday op-ed for the Toronto Star about the year in errors and corrections. Below are excerpts from both pieces.
CJR column:
The Year in Errata
About a month ago, I began the laborious and depressing task of scouring the archives of Regret the Error to find the best of the worst in media errors and corrections from 2008. I published my annual round-up earlier this week, and you can read it here, along with a month-by-month listing of incidents of plagiarism and fabrication.
It’s strange enough that I spent an hour or two a day tracking accuracy news and reading hundreds of corrections. Then, once a year, I go back and spend hours re-reading everything I published. Setting aside the obvious element of repetition, the worst part is having to relive a year of journalism scandals, errors and ethical infractions …
Toronto Star:
Another year of errors and regrets
Readers of the New Hampshire-based Valley News couldn’t help but shake their heads. On July 21, the paper’s lead story reported Barack Obama had called the situation in Afghanistan “precarious,” but the biggest news was far above the fold: the paper had misspelled its own name. People were reading the Valley Newss.
“Readers may have noticed that the Valley News misspelled its own name on yesterday’s front page,” read a subsequent editor’s note. “Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold themselves accountable for their mistakes, let us say for the record: we sure feel silly.”
Take heart, Valley News – you’re in good company.
Since 2004, I have been tracking press errors and corrections on my website, RegretTheError.com. Every year at this time I publish the best of the worst, along with a month-by-month catalogue of incidents of plagiarism and fabrication. In both cases, I have a lot of material to work with.
As a journalist, my professional pride takes a hit when, for example, the venerable Associated Press describes Senator Joseph Lieberman as a former “Democratic vice-presidential prick” or The Australian misquotes a beauty pageant contestant as having said she believes in “injustice and inequality.” …
The policewoman accused in a Newcastle upon Tyne court of being a pounds 100-an-hour prostitute is alleged to have had up to 20 clients a week, not 20 a day (Page 20, December 9). Link
Editor’s Note: This site doesn’t accept advertising (note: see UPDATE below). I’d be grateful if you’d consider purchasing a copy of the Regret the Error book, which won an award from the National Press Club this year. You can learn more about the book and read some reviews here. UPDATE March 2009: I’ve added some Google ads to the site. Of course, I still hope you’ll take a look at the book.
Trend of the Year: Epic Organizational Failure
It’s rare to look back over a year of corrections and errors and see so many examples of organizational failure. Years past have seen plenty of malfeasance by individuals, but 2008 is remarkable for news organizations that pursued completely outrageous behavior.
In Japan, the Mainichi Daily News, the English website of Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, had to be relaunched thanks to its repeated publishing of false, titillating stories. In England, the Express Newspapers chain published a series of major front page apologies to repent for its wildly inaccurate and damaging reports about a British family. In the United States, the Bulletin, a weekly in Montgomery County, Texas, was revealed to be perhaps the first newspaper to pursue plagiarism as a standard operating procedure.
As opposed to other years when a story (think Sago Mine disaster) dominated accuracy news, the headline for 2008 is that three news organizations knowingly and willfully fabricated, plagiarized or otherwise abdicated their ethics on a regular basis.
For their amazing feats of organizational failure, Mainichi Daily News, Express Newspapers and the Bulletin are each presented with a Regret the Error Award of Demerit. These three organizations join the only previous recipient, The Sun (UK) tabloid, which received the dishonor in 2006 for its repeated scandalous errors, remarkable apologies, and nasty pseudo-apologies. Congrats all around.
Other Trends of Note
Rick Reilly: Cat Nip To Plagiarists
Sports writer Rick Reilly deserves credit for having produced work of such brilliance that two different sports writers plagiarized his work in a period of less than two months. No wonder ESPN paid millions to hire him away from Sports Illustrated. One of the thieves, Dave Pratt, also offered up what has to be the accuracy quote of the year after he was asked by the CBC about his theft: “It was a Saturday and I wanted to get out of [the office] before noon.” Bravo.
David Gest Does Not Have Herpes*
Four different newspapers published apologies this year because they had reported – inaccurately! – that David Gest has herpes. Specifically, they reported that Gest alleged that he had contracted herpes from Liza Minnelli on their wedding night. The offenders were The Independent (UK), Daily Mail (UK), Times (UK) and the Baltimore Sun. (Perhaps I missed a few others.) Read all four apologies here, and here’s one from the Daily Mail:
In articles published on 23 and 26 May 2008, we gave the impression that Mr Gest had contracted a sexually transmitted infection and alleged that he had Liza Minnelli’s dog killed without her knowledge.
This was wrong. David Gest has never had a sexually transmitted infection and did not have Ms Minnelli’s dog killed.
We apologise to Mr Gest for any embarrassment caused.
Obama, Again
It’s a rule that the more someone is in the news, the more they’ll be the victim of media error. Obama errors were one of 2007’s Trends of the Year. They deserve mention again. Included below in this year’s Crunks is a Treasury of Obama Corrections from 2008. The next four years are going to be interesting…
New Award: The Ian Mayes Award for Writing Wrongs
Last year, Ian Mayes, one of the great correction writers of all time, stepped down as the readers’ editor of the Guardian. His corrections were sublime: to the point, witty, and self-effacing. (You can read the Regret the Error tribute to him at the end of last year’s Crunks, or buy his book of Guardian corrections.) With his blessing, I have created an award in his honor, the Ian Mayes Award for Writing Wrongs.
It will be awarded to the publication or person that demonstrates wit and wisdom in the writing of corrections. Mayes has agreed with my suggestion for the first recipient of the award. He is David Hummerston, the Saturday editor/editorial counsellor and readers’ editor of the West Australian. Yes, the man wears many hats.
In addition to everlasting fame, Hummerston will receive a signed copy of Ian Mayes’ book, Journalism Right and Wrong: Ethical and other issues raised by readers in the Guardian’s Open Door Column. Here’s a sample of Hummerston’s work from 2008:
Old Sparky: The compilers and suppliers of our On This Day column deserve to learn a lot more about electric execution. The recidivist column wrongly stated that the first electric chair execution took place on July 7, 1890. In fact, it was Wednesday, August 6, 1890 in New York – ironically then known as The Electric City of the Future – that wife-killer William Kemmler became the first man executed in an electric chair. Although Dr George C. Fell said Kemmler “never suffered a bit of pain”, a reporter who also witnessed the execution wrote in the New York Herald the next day that “strong men fainted and fell like logs upon the floor”.
Bad conduct: Charles Mackerras was not born in Australia (Emma hits heights, Today, page 6, December 1). The eminent orchestra conductor was born to Australian parents in 1925 in musical-sounding Schenectady, New York. Apropos of nothing, Schenectady was where, in 1886, the Machine Works company was set up by Thomas Edison, who also knew a thing or two about conductors.
E=mc3+1: As mathematicians, journalists make fine geishas. One of the paper’s most perspicacious readers has again successfully challenged our careless checking of figures in reports received from overseas and interstate. In one report we had an Olympic swimming pool holding a meagre 1000 megalitres – a waist-high depth that would becalm Eamon Sullivan (’Angel’, 4, drowns as plastic dam wall fails, page 17, November 25). And in another report we had 40,000 US “gleaners” filling 80,000 4-6kg sacks with 250kg of vegetables – a minuscule 6g per person (Hard times bite in America, World page 28, November 26). We still don’t know what we meant.
Hip hip, Horatio: Legendary British Admiral Horatio Nelson would have turned 250 today. We published a fascinating but mathematically muddled report from London about an auction today, wrongly stating it would mark the 250th anniversary of his death (Ring and box highlights of Nelson anniversary sale, page 36, September 25). If this was true, he would have died 47 years before the Battle of Trafalgar, where he was struck by a French sniper’s bullet and died on the first day of combat on October 21, 1805. Like Nelson, we had only one eye on the job.
Birdbrains: We swiftly swallowed the information supplied to us which described a photo of a bird in flight as a Rottnest Island Sparrow (The science of fine photography, page 19, August 16). As any eagle-eyed ornithologist would attest it was, of course, the much less rare Welcome Sparrow.
Deep depression: Our economics editor has officially gone from recession to depression. By mangling the names of two of history’s most highly decorated economists, John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, we not only created an economy of truth but blamed poor Milton Keynes for having “crazy” ideas (We can all learn from Depression, Opinion, page 21, September 29). Milton Keynes is an English town famous not only for its grid system of roads and its herd of concrete cows but because in 1998 it was deemed so boring that even chartered accountants refused to move there. The “crazy” ideas comment was intended for John Maynard Keynes, who was voted one of Time Magazine’s most important people of the 20th century – and who was not boring.
Congratulations!
Correction of the Year
One of the year’s most coveted awards goes to none other than Dave Barry. Here’s how the famous humor writer chose to correct a misspelling he made in a column published by the Miami Herald:
In yesterday’s column about badminton, I misspelled the name of Guatemalan player Kevin Cordon. I apologize. In my defense, I want to note that in the same column I correctly spelled Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarak, Poompat Sapkulchananart and Porntip Buranapraseatsuk. So by the time I got to Kevin Cordon, my fingers were exhausted.
An editing change to Philip Hensher’s copy last week (‘My Other Life’, Books) resulted in: ‘I can see myself now in an alternative life as the fat lady who comes into the rehearsal room…’ whereas he wrote: ‘I can see myself now in an alternative life, as the fat lady comes into the rehearsal room …’ He was describing his fantasy career as an accompanist, not, of course, as an overweight soprano.
Our apologies. Link
A CNS story slugged Scientist Sentencing that was transmitted Monday incorrectly stated that the defendant, Abraham Lesnik, admitted during the sentencing hearing that he had a drinking problem when he took classified documents from Boeing’s El Segundo plant to his Valley Village home.
A news service story on Dec. 9 incorrectly stated that Abraham Lesnik admitted during a sentencing hearing that he had a drinking problem when he took classified documents from Boeing’s El Segundo plant. Lesnik had actually told the judge that he was a “workaholic.” Link
Flight of fancy: We inadvertently created the travel bargain of the century (Deals, Travel, page 19, December 6). The $359 per person twin share for four nights quoted for the Grand Mercure Roxy in Singapore, including breakfast, does not (disappointingly) include airfares.
AN ARTICLE in last week’s Sunday Age, “Born to be, um, mild — and possibly damp”, contained views about biker groups that were inserted in the editing process.
As well, the survey of motorcyclists who rode for about three hours every weekend found that many had problems emptying their bladders.
The story stated that bike riders could be “bedwetters”. The error was made during editing. Link
Thanks, Ben!
ON June 2, 2008, The Daily Telegraph published an article headed, “Liar clocks up 49 fines for speeding, parking” concerning convicted criminal Martin Crowley. A photograph of respected NSW police officer Detective Sergeant Paul Thornton was published with the story and incorrectly labelled as being Crowley. The Daily Telegraph apologises unreservedly to Sgt Thornton for any harm caused or hurt to feelings suffered by him.
Bad conduct: Charles Mackerras was not born in Australia (Emma hits heights, Today, page 6, December 1). The eminent orchestra conductor was born to Australian parents in 1925 in musical-sounding Schenectady, New York. Apropos of nothing, Schenectady was where, in 1886, the Machine Works company was set up by Thomas Edison, who also knew a thing or two about conductors.
A quote in The Buzz on Nov. 28 that was attributed to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was actually from humorist Andy Borowitz. Link
Here’s the offending article, which has not been corrected. The quote in question came from an article on the Borowitz Report, a well known satirical website (see last graph):
Continuing in his quest to assemble a so-called “team of rivals,” President-elect Barack Obama today announced that he would name Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston to key Cabinet positions.
The two actresses, who have been perennial tabloid fodder as a result of their longstanding feud over actor Brad Pitt, were surprise choices for Mr. Obama’s Cabinet, since neither of them has been a government official or even portrayed one in a movie.
But in his weekly Internet address, the President-elect explained his rationale for choosing the sworn enemies to his Cabinet: “I chose Jennifer and Angelina for the same reason I have chosen every other Cabinet member: they clearly despise each other with a passion.”
While Mr. Obama was vague about which Cabinet positions the two actresses would ultimately hold, insiders said that Ms. Jolie was a shoo-in for Secretary of Labor.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and author of the book Team of Rivals, said that she was “thrilled” by the selection of the two actresses to Mr. Obama’s Cabinet.
“Every time someone says ‘team of rivals,’ I sell another book on Amazon,” she said. “Team of rivals, team of rivals, team of rivals.”
E=mc3+1: As mathematicians, journalists make fine geishas. One of the paper’s most perspicacious readers has again successfully challenged our careless checking of figures in reports received from overseas and interstate. In one report we had an Olympic swimming pool holding a meagre 1000 megalitres – a waist-high depth that would becalm Eamon Sullivan (’Angel’, 4, drowns as plastic dam wall fails, page 17, November 25). And in another report we had 40,000 US “gleaners” filling 80,000 4-6kg sacks with 250kg of vegetables – a minuscule 6g per person (Hard times bite in America, World page 28, November 26). We still don’t know what we meant.
In our edition of October 29, The Melbourne Times front cover was a digitally altered photograph depicting an aeroplane flying towards the Rialto Towers. The picture used was not an actual photograph of an aeroplane in the vicinity of any building, but rather, an image that had been digitally altered. Normally, when digitally altered pictures are used, The Melbourne Times acknowledges this. This time, a production error meant the acknowledgement did not appear. The Melbourne Times also accepts that the image may have caused some distress or anxiety among readers who may have assumed that the Rialto Towers had been, or were likely to be, the subject of a terrorist attack. This is not true. The Melbourne Times apologises for any distress that use of the image may have caused. The image will not be used again.
Thanks, Kevin!
AN article published in The Weekend Australian on July 22, 2006, (MP with stars in his eyes for killers, page 1) referred to former MP Peter Breen’s support for, and feelings towards, two men jailed for their part in the rape and murder of Janine Balding. Any inference that this support was based on a romantic love for the two men was not intended and is incorrect. The Australian apologises to Mr Breen for any distress caused.
Critic Tom Sietsema should have recused himself from reviewing the Commissary, a restaurant featured in the Oct. 29 Food section. He and one of the restaurant’s owners had earlier had a personal relationship. The Washington Post regrets that he reviewed this restaurant, and will remove the review from its online archive. Link
This Editor’s Note was written about by the Washington City Paper, and the resulting story includes the text of an email sent by the owner of the Commissary. It’s notable for this passage (emphasis added):
We challenged Mr. Sietsema on his grievously negative assertions, his lack of disclosure and the simple fact that the article should never have been written. We insisted that recusing himself was the only proper and ethical thing to have done. He apologized for not recusing himself, nothing more.
All this was then turned over to his editor, Tom Shroder of The Washington Post Magazine. Mr. Shroder, understanding the ramifications of Mr. Sietsema’s actions offered a settlement; kill the story on the web immediately, print a retraction in Sunday’s paper, and that neither Mr. Sietsema nor any member of The Washington Post food team would ever write about any Eatwell DC restaurant again. What they would not do is apologize for the harm caused by Sietsema’s spurious comments. “The Washington Post doesn’t apologize” but “we will say we regret”.
Thanks, Greg!
On 19 June 2007, we reported that David Hasselhoff had celebrated winning custody of his two daughters by getting drunk and making a nuisance of himself in a Hollywood bar.
We now accept that David did not drink any alcohol that evening and nor did he irritate other customers.
We apologise to David for any embarrassment caused. Link
Thanks, Iris and Andrea!
An earlier version of this story conflated two non-existent audio tapes of Michelle Obama. Link
Thanks, David!
An article in some editions on Wednesday about Fordham University’s plan to give an ethics prize to Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer misspelled the surname of another Supreme Court justice who received the award in 2001. She is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, not Ginsberg. The Times has misspelled her name at least two dozen times since 1980; this is the first correction the paper has published. Link
I contacted Greg Brock, the Times senior editor in charge of corrections, for some background. Here’s what he said:
What’s interesting is that Ginsburg has never complained. And oddly, no one in the Washington bureau ever noticed it. Not even Linda Greenhouse, our recently departed court reporter. (Though Linda never misspelled it.) And I can find only one modern-day misspelling from the Washington bureau.
Sometimes, when we keep misspelling a name, I take the time just to see how many times we have misspelled it. I remember Attorney General Gonzales was a problem for a while.
About a year ago, we were doing more of these archive searches and including references in some corrections, but we decided to ease up. It can come across as a sledge hammer if we’re not careful. So we now try to use it when we want to emphasize the point. In this case, since a reader pointed out that we had never corrected it, it seemed worth owning up to that.
Binge drinking: Deakin University professor of psychology Robert Cummins points out that neither he nor his research said that binge drinking could be a good thing (Professor sees positive side of binge drinking, page 17, October 23). He said although his Wellbeing Index research found that the feeling of wellbeing in 18-25 year-olds remained high even after three drinks, this was not a good thing and made it difficult for policy-makers to devise controls for binge drinking. Moderation was the key to the link between alcohol consumption and happiness.
In a report published in The Sunday Age on 16 September 2007 entitled ‘Is it the end of the line for a legendary seabird? This is where ‘Operation Albatross’ comes in’, it was said that Mr Brothers invented a chute device which drowned endangered albatrosses and other deep diving sea birds. The Sunday Age acknowledges that Mr Brothers did not invent the chute device and that it does not drown these sea birds. The Sunday Age apologies to Mr Brothers for any hurt he has suffered. Link
Thanks, Ben!
A photo caption in the Oct. 22 Style section incorrectly referred to Bill O’Reilly as a “right-wing pundit.” The Fox News host presents himself as an independent. Link
Thanks, Josh!
Bob Fredrick, a clinical social worker and therapist in Atlanta, is not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. A story in the Sunday Living section had incorrect information, including a misspelling of his name.
THE source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too. Bread and water would be too good for such disinformation. Link
As the New York Observer noted, this erroneous report was picked up by others:
Rush Limbaugh’s Web site has a transcript of the radio host reading the Page Six item and saying, “Now, the first thing about this is, if I’m the Obamas, I’m thinking, ‘Who the hell called the newspaper on this?’ These hotels are not supposed to say a word about what goes on in there. Trust me, they do.” Mr. Limbaugh also termed the Obamas non-existent meal order “hypocrisy.” (Weirdly—appropriately?—Mr. Limbaugh’s transcription service renders the hotel’s name ‘Waldorf-Hysteria.’)
Town Hall’s Carol Platt Liebau wrote, “Look, I don’t begrudge the Obamas their caviar and lobster. I like lobster, too (caviar? not so much). It’s just that the whole mentality strikes me as typical of Democrat thinking.”
It wasn’t just professional talking pointers jumping on the story. This “P.U.M.A.” Web site (remember “P.U.M.A.“? Good times…) mocked up a fake receipt signed by Ms. Obama. A different site ran with the headline The Audacity of Michelle Obama’s $447.39 Snack Tab. Here’s another which noted “Obama is swimming in the $$$$” and then quipped, “What does one do with all that cash?”
Thanks to George and the others folks for the link.
As told by the Guardian’s amusing Media Monkey:
The history of radio is littered with presenters announcing that people had died, when they hadn’t. Sometimes it’s accidental – Bob Geldof on a former incarnation of London’s Xfm sombrely intoned that Ian Dury had died, years before the veteran rocker actually passed away. Sometimes it’s for a joke – Chris Morris, on his BBC Radio 1 show, famously told listeners that Jimmy Savile and Michael Heseltine had died. And to this unlikely pantheon we can add TalkSport presenter Andy Goldstein, who said his colleague and former Chelsea defender Jason Cundy had “passed away” after he was unable to make the station’s Sports Bar show. But the joke, such as it was, rather backfired when listeners took him seriously and started laying flowers at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge ground. Cundy – who survived cancer in 1997 – is alive and well. Still, the flowers will look lovely in the team dressing room.
