A map showing reported deaths in Syria since protests began at the beginning of the year contained some errors. The Golan Heights were located north of Damascus, some distance from the Israeli border. The city of Idlib appeared twice, once in its correct location and again near Hama. The same city, normally referred to in [...]
Earlier today, this correction was added to the online version of the explosive Guardian article that helped push phone hacking back into the news, and ultimately sink the News of the World: An article about the investigation into the abduction and death of Milly Dowler (News of the World hacked Milly Dowler’s phone during police [...]
A post on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site suffered from some poor — but amusing! — photo sourcing: The caption really makes the error all the more wonderful. The photo has been fixed, though a correction was not placed on the story. Instead, a Guardian employee posted a corrective comment: There were of course [...]
Here’s a case study in how a story can spread far and wide, causing anger and frustration for the person at the heart of the tale. I became aware of it thanks to this rather vague correction in the Guardian: A Weekend magazine article about a woman who for part of her working life dresses [...]
An obituary of Richard Scott, the former chair of the Scott Trust, contained errors. The obituary stated that CP Scott was the editor of the Manchester Guardian from 1871 to 1932, when in fact he retired in 1929, to be succeeded by his son Ted. In an appreciation of Richard Scott it was stated that [...]
A front-page story (19 November) about the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s investigation into the shooting of Mark Duggan carried a seriously misleading headline in print and online. The story detailed developments in the IPCC investigation, which include findings that show there is no forensic evidence that Duggan was carrying a gun when shot, and that [...]
In a piece sketching the Leveson inquiry, we incorrectly stated that the Sun newspaper sent a reporter to the home of a junior counsel to the inquiry. The Sun did not send a reporter to the barrister’s home. We apologise for the error and any suggestion that there was an intention by the Sun to [...]
An interview with the universities minister, David Willetts, described him as an enthusiast for coalition government and quoted him as saying: “You can’t get anywhere without an appeal to tribal loyalty.” In fact he said the opposite: “You can’t get anywhere with an appeal to tribal loyalty.” (‘Many more will go to university than in [...]
An obituary of the film-maker George Kuchar was illustrated with a photograph that did not show him, as the caption said, but his twin brother, Mike (20 October, page 35). Link Report an error
A recipe for honey nut banana muffins included a comment that “you may want to add a little fried fruit to the mix . . . to make the flavour more interesting”. Dried fruit, that should be (How to bake, 29 October, page 93, Weekend). Link Report an error
The Guardian published articles about Aston Villa which contained a number of inaccuracies that might have led some readers to believe that Martin O’Neill’s management of the football club cost “phenomenal” sums of money with very little by way of success and that as a result he was justifiably dismissed without compensation. We accept that [...]
Leslie Plommer is an associate editor in the office of the Guardian readers editor (ombudsman). She occasionally fills in for the editor by taking over the weekly column, as she did last weekend. Plommer shared a bit of news about the paper’s print corrections column, and announced a new webpage dedicated to accuracy and standards. [...]
An advisory issued by Reuters on Friday: Please be advised that the Oct 27 Moscow story headlined “Chechen teen diary a bitter tale of bombs and survival” has been withdrawn because, though it included original reporting, it is too similar to a piece already published by The Guardian on the same subject to be appropriate [...]
Describing Stoke-on-Trent’s ceramics biennial a piece said that “Portmeirion’s Staffordshire factory . . . now produces 140,000 pots a day”. That should have been 140,000 pots a week (Stoke inspired as it reclaims china trade from far east, 3 October, page 11). In an Oct. 21 story about the 1940 massacre of Polish officers and [...]
The former Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross was described in a column as having “hurled the nearest chair to the floor” during a meeting at Downing Street about crime policy. To clarify, he was not acting intemperately but used a chair to make the point that most crime is impulsive. The article went on to say [...]
Novelist Haruki Murakami was said to be fond of the works of Raymond Carver; that should have been Raymond Chandler (‘I took a gamble and survived’, 15 October, page 36, Weekend). Link Puzzled by the headline? Explanation. Report an error
With a story covering the health secretary’s call for people to cut calories, a chart appeared, headed Obesity in the UK: Number of people treated for obesity as in-patients. Surveying the past decade, it showed 10.57 million people being treated in 2009-10, ranging down to 1.05 million in 2000-01 – a startlingly large segment of [...]
A column said: “A good deal of reporting looks almost indistinguishable from corporate press releases. Often that’s because it is corporate press releases, mindlessly recycled by overstretched staff: a process Nick Davies has christened churnalism.” While a 2008 book about journalism by Nick Davies looked at the churnalism phenomenon, among other subjects, its author lays [...]
Headlined Fast Eddie, friend to the famous, swaps Portland Place mansion for a prison cell, a piece about a fraud verdict featured a photo of self-styled “Lord” Eddie Davenport with his girlfriend and “their husky puppy”. As a reader noted, the foxy looking puppy showed every sign of being a shiba inu, not a husky, [...]
Reading the coverage leading up to — and during! — today’s Apple iPhone event, you’d be forgiven if you thought Apple had an iPhone 5. It doesn’t. The new phone is the iPhone 4S. And yet look at all of this iPhone 5 language in Google News: The live blogs were some of the worst [...]
Not always is the Guardian faithful to the memory of Bavarian-born botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566), for whom the fuchsia is named. Latest case in point: a piece noted that cutting a figure against the general beigeness of the backdrop at the Labour party’s conference platform, was a speaker with hair “a startling shade of fuschia” [...]
Tim Geithner is the US treasury secretary, not secretary of state (Greece under more pressure after finance ministers put brakes on bailout payment, 17 September, page 41). Link Report an error
We have been asked to clarify that an unidentified individual in the background of a photograph featuring Alan and Laura Johnson was not the Metropolitan police officer under investigation over allegations regarding an inappropriate relationship (Picture caption: Former shadow chancellor Alan Johnson with his wife Laura, who is alleged to have had an affair with [...]
A feature article about Fukushima six months after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant contained some errors. References to the amount of radiation a person receives during a chest x-ray were incorrect: the amount is 0.1 millisieverts, not 0.1 microsieverts. We also incorrectly stated [...]
A feature examining the growing number of pornographic websites that show people suffering from anorexia used a case history purporting to be of a victim, “Ronny Bi”. That case history has now been removed from the article because it lacked sufficient verification (‘Superstars of starvation’, 6 April, page 1, Society). Link Report an error
