Gabon drifted from the west coast of Africa into the centre of the continent on a map accompanying an article about the country’s president (Papa Bongo’s 40 years in power, page 15, May 5). Link
“I can never tell the difference between a dunnock and a house sparrow,” wrote a contributor to Notes & Queries (page 20, G2, May 6). Neither could we. The photographs we used, and labelled as a dunnock and a house sparrow, were both of sparrows, female and male respectively. Link
We were wrong to say that Scandinavian Airlines commissioned Parisian maestro Christian Dior to revamp their winter uniform in 1971; he died in 1957. The uniforms were designed by the House of Dior, then under the direction of Marc Bohan (Work that look!, page 11, G2, April 24). Link
That’s a line from a blog post by Guardian subeditor (copy editor) David Marsh. It’s long been a common refrain from journalists, especially editors. In fact, Mitchell V. Charnley said basically the same thing in the introduction to his 1936 study of newspaper accuracy, the first of its kind.
“As common as the layman’s superficial generalization [...]
Iraq was wrongly labelled as Iran on a map of the Middle East that accompanied a story headlined US claims North Korea helped build Syria reactor plant, page 2, April 25. Link
We misquoted the second part of an aphorism by the Mishnaic scholar Old Hillel. It is “If I am for myself alone what am I?” and not “If I am not for myself alone what am I?” (page 8, Review, April 19).
In our obituary of Maryam Firouz (page 35, March 31), we said her daughter Afsar had predeceased her. That is not the case. Apologies.
We said that, in the American TV drama 24, Jack Bauer, the counter-terrorism agent, resorted to electrocution to extract information. You cannot extract information from someone who has been electrocuted because they are dead (Questioning, the Jack Bauer way, page 1, April 19). Link
Leeds United: Our article, McAllister gets new Leeds deal (page 6, Sport, April 4), wrongly suggested that Leeds United FC has been guilty of abuses of insolvency regulations. This is untrue. We accept that there were no breaches of such regulations in connection with the 15-point deduction that was made at the start of the [...]
MSNBC is a US cable news channel, not a US television programme (Hitchens the pundit who uses ‘lesbian’ as an insult, page 3, G2, April 9). Link
An article headed Road and air chaos as snow blankets parts of country, page 12, April 7, said that sailors should have a working GPS, VHS radio and up-to-date charts; we meant VHF (very high frequency) radio. Link
It’s fine-tooth comb, not fine toothcomb (’Not our finest hour’. . .page 4 March 29). Link
The market capitalisation of the US investment bank Bear Stearns was once again misreported when we said it was once valued at $70bn (Does anybody know what went wrong?, page 6, G2, March 24). As we pointed out in this column last week, it was worth about $25bn at its peak and its highest value [...]
Heather Mills’s charitable donations, recorded in the part of the divorce case judgment released to the public, are £627,000 and not £627 as we had it in a panel headed The assets, page 7, March 19. Link
Barbara Seaman’s biography of Jacqueline Susann, Lovely Me, was inadvertently described as an obituary (Barbara Seaman obituary, page 41, March 12). Link
A quote in a story about Warren Buffett contained an error: Bill Gates’s mansion would not have cost $40bn or $50bn, but $40m or $50m (After 13 years of Gates, enter the new richest man in the world: The Sage, page 3, March 6). Link
Penguin audiobooks will not be copyright-free, as we said in a headline. They are to be free of digital copyright protection technology, allowing them to be downloaded on to digital devices. Unauthorised copying of the audiobooks will still be a violation of copyright (Penguin audiobooks to be copyright-free, page 24, March 4). Link
Mount Baldy, where Leonard Cohen spent time at a Buddhist retreat, is not in Greece, but in the San Gabriel mountains, about 40 miles from Los Angeles (Hail, hail, rock’n’roll, page 14, Film & Music, February 29).
February 26, 2008 – 8:00 am
We should have said that Sven-Goran Eriksson was trying to defuse, rather than diffuse, what we described as “a powder-keg moment”; he was trying to make things better, not worse (Eriksson begs fans to forget differences for only 60 seconds, page 5, Sport, February 9). Link
February 25, 2008 – 8:00 am
Shock tactics, page 9, Environment, February 20, included a quote: “when you put the kettle on, there is a horrific jump (from 200 watts) to 2,000 kilowatts. That’s scary.” More scary than was intended; we meant to say 2,000 watts or 2 kilowatts, not 2,000 kilowatts. Link
February 21, 2008 – 8:00 am
In Cameron warns farmers of global food shortages, February 19, guardian.co.uk, we reported that the Conservative leader said people in China and India are eating more meat, which means less grain is needed. In fact he said that the increase in the consumption of meat means that farmers now feed 250m more tonnes of grain [...]
February 15, 2008 – 8:00 am
Hypatia of Alexandria lived around 400AD, not BC (Meet the mothers of invention, page 16, G2, February 1). Link
February 14, 2008 – 8:00 am
Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder and CEO of the internet security company Kaspersky Lab, was never a “KGB man” or a lieutenant in the KGB (The ex-KGB man stalking the cybercriminals, page 5, Technology, January 31). He studied cryptography at a high school which was then co-sponsored by the Russian department of defence and KGB, and went [...]
February 12, 2008 – 8:00 am
It was Vivian Fuchs who crossed the Antarctic in 1958, not Klaus Fuchs as we said (The events we choose to mark tell us who we are, page 34, February 9). Klaus Fuchs was the nuclear physicist jailed for espionage in 1950. Link
February 11, 2008 – 8:00 am
A graphic with a report on Afghanistan (page 8, February 6) should have said that 6,500 Afghans, rather than Afghanis, had been killed in 2007. An Afghani is a unit of currency. Link
