Regret the Error » new york times

A bare-chested Brad Pitt was not brutally cuffed by police

Craig Silverman — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:30:36 +0000

An article on Nov. 24 about the photographer Steven Klein misstated the year that the magazine Dutch published pictures showing men being brutally handcuffed by police. The photographs appeared in the May-June 2002 issue, not in 2003. The article also erroneously included an American actor among the men shown in the pictures. Dutch did not publish a picture of Brad Pitt ”kneeling and bare-chested, being brutally cuffed by the police.” (The magazine identified the men as Travis, Adam Durocher and Eric White.) Link

More than 25 years later, a correction

Craig Silverman — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:45 +0000

An article on Thursday about a push to ban horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park misstated part of the name of an organization to which an upstate New York veterinarian belongs, and it described the carriages incorrectly at one point. The veterinarian, Dr. Nena Winand, is a member of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, not the American Society of Equine Practitioners. And the carriages have four wheels, and therefore are not “hansom cabs,” which are two-wheeled. An accompanying picture caption, as well as a subheading in some editions, and a correction in this space on Friday repeated the error about the cabs. (A reader pointed out this inaccuracy in a letter published in The Times in 1985, but this is the first correction of numerous such references through the years.) Link

New York Times reporter returns to his first byline, discovers two errors

Craig Silverman — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:52:00 +0000

Thirty years ago, a cub reporter for the New York Times was given his first assignment: “to cover the failure of the old transmitter of Columbia University’s radio station, WKCR-FM, which was then perched on 515 Madison Avenue, at 53rd Street.”

David W. Dunlap was brought back to the memory of that first Times byline thanks to a recent interview about WKCR. He subsequently wrote a post for the Times City Room blog about his memory of that first story, and how it relates to recent news at the station. His post included a scan of the original 1981 story. As a result of that old story being resurfaced, Dunlap learned that he’d made two errors in his story. So he blogged about those, too:

Bad enough to discover, on revisiting the article, that I’d misstated the cross street at which the tower was situated. (I said it was 54th Street.)

Then came this e-mail: “I was Googling WKCR and found this article below. I had no idea that I was a part of your first article and that James Gleick was your editor! It was fun to know this after so many years. Michael Silberstein. P.S. It’s Silberstein, not Silverstein.”

Goes to show that it’s never too late for a reader — or long lost source — to help you fix some errors.

Rest is fine

Craig Silverman — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:30:58 +0000

An obituary last Sunday about Basil D’Oliveira, the South African cricket player, misstated Mr. D’Oliveira’s age when he immigrated to England. He was in his late 20s, not ”well into his 30s.” The obituary also misstated the first year the South African cricket team played an international match after South Africa canceled a visit by the English cricket team in 1968. It was 1991, not 1994. And it misstated the surname of the author of the book ”Basil D’Oliveira, Cricket and Conspiracy: The Untold Story.” He is Peter Oborne, not Osborne. Link

Fuzzy numbers etc.

Craig Silverman — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:00:46 +0000

An article on Wednesday about the expansion of a federal program meant to help some homeowners whose home values have declined sharply misstated, in some editions, the amount of spending power that would be added to the American economy if 10 million more homeowners refinanced and saved an average of $200 a month. It is $24 billion, not $240 billion. Link

Tips from the New York Times for avoiding misspelled names

Craig Silverman — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:00:30 +0000

I recently blogged some proofreading tips from the New York Times, and now the paper is back with some new advice. This time the topic is misspelled names, which has long been a problem for the paper. Here are the latest stats on the Times and its name issue:

My colleague Greg Brock reports that of about 2,800 errors we’ve corrected in print so far this year, 460 have involved people’s names. And every time we get a name wrong, we chip away at The Times’s credibility in the eyes of readers. It’s embarrassing when we misspell well-known names. Even worse is misspelling the names of ordinary people who may appear in The Times only once. Their moment in the spotlight is spoiled, and they’re likely to tell everyone they know that The Times can’t get its facts straight.

And now for the Times tips:

In every interview, ask the subject to spell his or her name.

If you use another source, online or elsewhere, be sure it’s reliable. (Don’t take a Google poll and go with the spelling that gets the most hits.)

Don’t just check how we spelled the name last time — our archive is, among other things, a minefield of past errors.

Copy editors should check as many names as humanly possible.

If you couldn’t double-check before the first deadline, do it afterward.

Be wary of names with common variants — Stephen and Steven, O’Neil and O’Neill and O’Neal.

Don’t rely on memory.

Good advice.

Oh, right, the guys we partnered with

Craig Silverman — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:00:08 +0000

An article on Monday about the possibility that San Francisco voters may elect the city’s first Chinese-American mayor today misstated the name of the news organization that reported on the possible issues in the campaign of Edwin M. Lee, a longtime city official now serving as interim mayor. It is The Bay Citizen, not The Bay Observer. (The Bay Citizen produces a twice-weekly local section in the Bay Area editions of The New York Times.) Link

Cocaine psychosis for one

Craig Silverman — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:00:16 +0000

An article on Oct. 20 about the musician and record producer Nile Rodgers and his new memoir referred incompletely to an anecdote he told about suffering ”cocaine psychosis” on what he said was the last day he used drugs, a day he visited the hotel suite of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. Mr. Blackwell was not using cocaine. Link

Jersey Shore as queer culture?

Craig Silverman — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:00:32 +0000

A critic’s notebook article on Monday about an academic conference at the University of Chicago on the television show ”Jersey Shore” referred imprecisely to a comment made by Candace Moore, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan who spoke about the friendship between Vinny and Pauly D. She linked the quest for ”stranger sex” by men on the show to ”some queer and kink cultures,” not specifically to gay male sexual culture. Link

Fun with photos

Craig Silverman — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:30:41 +0000

IN yesterday’s report concerning three fatal road traffic accidents, a photograph purportedly of Aoife Ivers, who was injured in an accident near Portumna, was in fact of her friend, Gemma Hayde. Ms Hayde was not involved in the accident. We are happy to correct the position and apologise for any confusion caused.

A picture in some editions on Saturday with an article about a decision by John C. Liu, the New York City comptroller, to hire Robert Abrams, a former state attorney general, to review Mr. Liu’s campaign fundraising practices was published in error. It showed Robert W. Abrams, a defense lawyer who is deceased. Link

Man in photo deceased: The cutline on an archived photo that ran in some editions Tuesday with an article about the Vieux Carre Commission said the man pictured, Alan Shea, lives on Dauphine Street. Shea died in 2009.

That’s Herman Cain, not McCain

Craig Silverman — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:13:10 +0000

An earlier version of this post misspelled the surname of Herman Cain as McCain. Link

Thanks, Dave!

Tigers in Africa? Oh my

Craig Silverman — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:00:40 +0000

The Practical Traveler column last Sunday, about safaris in Africa, misidentified one of the animals that make up the Big Five, which many visitors hope to see there. The Big Five consist of the elephant, rhinoceros, lion, leopard and the African, or Cape, buffalo — not the water buffalo, which is not found in Africa. In addition, an accompanying illustration was published in error. It erroneously included a tiger, which is also not found in Africa. Link

Lost in translation

Craig Silverman — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:30:27 +0000

The Barrow Journal article on Oct. 17, about the fall subsistence whale hunt in Barrow, Alaska, misstated a greeting exchanged between the captain of a crew that killed a whale and a crowd onshore. They shouted ”aarigaa” at each other — an Inupiaq word meaning ”very good.” The captain did not shout, and the crowd did not respond, ”Ah ah ha!” Link

Historical death by media

Craig Silverman — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:30:34 +0000

An obituary on Saturday about John M. Blum, the presidential historian and author of an influential biography of Theodore Roosevelt, referred incorrectly to Roosevelt’s family. His wife and mother died in 1884, but his daughter Alice, who was born that year, lived until 1980. Roosevelt did not lose ”his wife, newborn daughter and mother in the span of a few days in 1884.” Link

The New York Times offers an amusing Angry Birds correction

Craig Silverman — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:38:22 +0000

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the premise of “Angry Birds,” a popular iPhone game. In the game, slingshots are used to launch birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses, not to shoot down the birds. Link

So many folks were sending this by email and Twitter that I thought I’d get it up ASAP.