Thanks for being a regular reader. You can check out the award-winning Regret the Error book here.
A headline on a capsule summary in some editions on Monday about China’s new ambassador to North Korea misidentified the location of a weekend party welcoming him to the country. It was in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang — not, of course, in the South Korean capital of Seoul. (The article, which noted the correct location, was written from Seoul.) Link
An earlier version of the story incorrectly mentioned Moldavia as a fictional place. The error has been corrected. Link
In an article on 16 December 2009 about procedures that can be open to misuse to enhance performance in sport, we were wrong to say that the English Institute of Sport endorses “blood spinning”; it says it does not. “Blood spinning” describes a process in which a quantity of blood is taken from an athlete and the blood platelets are captured through a method using centrifugal force. (Later the platelets may be infused or locally injected into the athlete.) The article – Legal, hard to spot and open to misuse, page 3 – appeared under the byline of Michele Verroken, an expert from a sports governance consultancy, but in reality she was interviewed; a fact we should have made clear. Michele Verroken has made clear that she did not intend to suggest that the English Institute of Sport endorsed blood spinning, but rather that it accepts another process known as autologous blood injection. (This is where a small amount of blood is taken from an athlete’s arm and then injected, without any intervening process to alter this blood, at the site of a muscle, tendon or ligament injury.) Link
The Guardian’s reader’s editor also mentioned some recent errors in her latest column:
… The front-page story about the people who were stuck in a pub also reported that the snow prevented a woman getting back home to her husband after she nipped out to get the turkey and trimmings for the Christmas dinner. Visibility must have been poor because the journalist located her converted lighthouse keeper’s cottage in Cape Wrath on Scotland’s north-east tip. “A quick glance at a map will tell you that it’s actually extreme north-west Scotland,” said Alex McCarren. Graeme Munro pointed out that the paper was “doubly wrong” about Cape Wrath: “It is on the north-west tip of the Scottish mainland,” he said.
That wasn’t the first geographical error of 2010. The caption on one of the photographs used in the paper’s centre-spread on New Year’s Day made the mistake of calling Lagos Nigeria’s capital, when Abuja has been the country’s capital since 1991. And an editing error in Ten journalists try out their dream jobs for a day, G2′s cover story last Monday, misplaced Maidenhead in Kent. It can usually be found in Berkshire, even in very bad weather. I think “putting locations in the right places” needs to be added to this year’s resolutions …
In “Underqualified for the Overrated” we incorrectly said that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Stockholm. In fact, it is given in Oslo. We also said the Italian daily La Stampa is based in Rome. It’s based in Turin. NEWSWEEK REGRETS the errors. Link
Madonna : In Saturday’s Calendar, a Quick Takes item about Madonna being booed for comments in Bucharest about discrimination against Gypsies said Bucharest was in Hungary. Bucharest is in Romania.
Crossed consonants: the accidental substitution of an “r” for an “x” led to the incorrect labelling of Paros and Antiparos as “Paxos” and “Antipaxos” in our map of “Greece’s Hidden Corners” (Escape, 10 May), thus relocating the latter from the Ionian to the Aegean sea.
And, furthermore, the capital of Turkey is Ankara, not Istanbul, as we said in “‘Free holiday’ scams abroad will catch out 400,000 Brits” (Cash, last week).
TS Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri, so we were not technically correct in “Revealed: the remarkable tale of TS Eliot’s late love affair” (Review, last week) when we described him as having “Mississippi roots”, suggesting he hailed from the Magnolia State. However, the Mississippi River meets the Missouri River near St Louis. Link
In yesterday’s instalment of the World factfile series, Ukraine was incorrectly identified as Kazakhstan in a small map of the region on page 6, and Romania as Macedonia on page 21. Link
A Champions League football report said yesterday: “As Liverpool seized a two-goal lead inside 28 minutes, we were back in the remote moonscape of the Ataturk Olympic Stadium to the west of Turkey’s capital, an unlikely setting for a magical transformation” (Defiant Liverpool shine a light in the dark of sorrow, page 2 and 3, Sport). Magical indeed, as a reader noted, as Ankara is Turkey’s capital, not Istanbul where the stadium is. Link
In an April 7 “XX Factor” post, E.J. Graff originally wrote that she wanted to run up to Burlington, Vt., to kiss every legislator who voted in favor of gay marriage. Vermont legislators work out of the state capital, Montpelier. Link
The Canadian Press moved a story April 3 that erroneously reported The Wilkins Ice Shelf was originally part of Jamaica. In fact the Ice Shelf, located on the western side of the Antarctic was originally the size of Jamaica.
Thanks, Andrew!
We said that in 1709 “from Czechoslovakia in the east… everything turned to ice” (7 February, p 46). No such country existed in 1709. It was founded in 1918 and split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Link
“My trip to Canada is all fond kisses” (Comment, Scottish edition, last week) described the Fraser River as being in Halifax but it actually flows through British Columbia and reaches the Pacific near Vancouver. Halifax is on the Atlantic coast. Link
Pennsylvania Avenue: A map accompanying an article in Tuesday’s Section A about historic landmarks along Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue showed wrong locations for an FBI building and the Willard Hotel. The FBI headquarters was shown in its present location on 9th Street, but at the time the bureau was spying on Martin Luther King it was at the Department of Justice, across the street. The Willard Hotel, where President Lincoln stayed before his first inauguration and where state delegates met in an attempt to prevent civil war, was shown at 10th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. It is at 14th Street and Pennsylvania. Also, a photo caption with that article gave an incorrect date of President Eisenhower’s inaugural parade. It was Jan. 20, 1953, not Jan. 21. Link
Inauguration map: In a graphic on Page 7 of today’s special section on Barack Obama’s inauguration, a map of the National Mall area gave the wrong location for 1st Street. Also, a label for the White House should have been placed farther to the right. Link
WesternZagros Resources Ltd. operates in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, not the country of Kyrgyzstan. Incorrect information was published yesterday. Link
Correction November 22: The above correction was originally attributed to the Guardian. In fact, it was published by the Globe And Mail. Thanks, Siobhain!
In some versions of this story, we incorrectly described New Mexico as “the swing state next to Nevada.” New Mexico and Nevada are not contiguous. Link
Afghan assassination: An article in Sunday’s Section A about the slaying of an Afghan provincial governor said the Taliban movement ruled Pakistan until late 2001, when it was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion. It was Afghanistan that the Taliban ruled. Link
A map on Page 4A Tuesday mislabeled Armenia and Azerbaijan as Iraq and Iran. Link
Staten Island and Manhattan are boroughs of New York City. A Media & Marketing article Tuesday about the rivalry between Time Warner Cable Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. incorrectly said Staten Island is a borough of Manhattan.
And:
Talks between Zimbabwe and government officials were expected to begin near South Africa’s capital, Pretoria. A World Watch item Wednesday incorrectly said the talks would be held near Johannesburg and referred to it as the capital. Link to both
Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East included a stop in Jordan, not Lebanon, as an editorial stated Tuesday. The Sun regrets the error.
A book reviewer on Sunday of “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War,” by Patrick J. Buchanan, stated that Hitler wanted the return of the city of Dresden. In fact, it was the Polish city of Danzig Hitler wanted returned to Germany.
In “Dirty Smoke Signals” (May), we mistakenly reported that the Black Mesa coal mine is located east of Phoenix. It is roughly 300 miles north.
An answer in yesterday’s edition of Isaac Asimov’s Super Quiz was wrong. As every proud Canadian knows, the second-largest country in the world is Canada, not Ukraine. Ukraine’s nice but Canada’s a lot bigger.
The map on page 101 misplaced Albuquerque, New Mexico, and omitted Santa Fe. Ponderosa pine seeds were incorrectly described as wingless on page 102; they do have small wings.
And:
The birds flying across the map of Japan on Page 140 are whooping cranes, native only to North America.
Thanks, Jim!
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
Regret the Error Columns on Columbia Journalism Review online From My Posterous
