A story Monday about the use of ignition interlock devices by people convicted of driving while intoxicated misstated which vehicles are covered by the existing state law. Any vehicle driven by the person required to use the device would have to have the device. Link

Not sure if I’m the only person who finds that last sentence a bit convoluted…

A story Jan. 29 used an inappropriate word to describe patrons at the Massapequa Post 1066 of the American Legion. The word could be read as disparaging, which was not Newsday’s intention. Its use did not reflect Newsday’s policy to avoid loaded terms and imprecise language when reporting on individuals or groups.

The paper corrected the story in Nexis, which is good to see. Of course, it also means I don’t know what the offending word was.

UPDATE March 4: It appears the word was “barflies.” Reader Fev sent me a link to a letter to the editor sent to Newsday and massapequanews.com by Commander Jack Hipp of the Massapequa Post 1066-American Legion:

I am writing in regard to an article entitled “Taking Inventory of the Homeless” written by your reporter, Michael Amon in the Thursday, January 29, 2009 edition.  This article did a public service by raising awareness of the plight of homeless veterans.  However, in the last paragraph of this reporter’s article he refers to members of  Massapequa Post 1066 of the American Legion as “barflies.”  As the Commander of that Post, I vehemently object to the language used by this reporter towards members of my Post …

*Correction March 4: The headline of this post initially and incorrectly referred to Newsweek instead of Newsday. I regret the error. Thanks, Linda!

Here’s the original paragraph:

Nearby, Jeremy Pomerantz, a senior at Sayville High School who speaks Spanish, chatted with several families from Ecuador. He said he could empathize with their feeling of being ostracized because he is one of only a few Sayville High students who is Jewish.

Death by Obiticide

I have some bad news to pass along this week: two people were killed as a result of sloppy journalism.

It happens more often than you might expect. It’s frequent enough, in fact, that I’ve come up with a name for this phenomenon: obiticide. Death by media error.

Newsday was one of the guilty parties, as evidenced by this correction:

In an article published yesterday about autism, some editions reported incorrectly that Vito “Billy” Albanese Jr. died at an out-of-state residential facility. Albanese is living in Brooklyn with his father.

British paper The Observer also published a correction to atone for shunting Ted Sorensen into an early grave:

Ted Sorensen, the author of Counselor, was unfortunately described as ‘the late’ in our Books pages last week; we are happy to report that John F Kennedy’s adviser and speechwriter is still very much with us. And Julia Blackburn, not Blackwell, wrote The Three of Us, published by Cape (Books, last week). Apologies.

Sorensen is something of a mistake magnet. Last year, The New York Times admitted that it had misspelled his name more than 135 times over the last fifty-plus years. If given the choice, though, Sorensen probably prefers having his name mangled to being knocked off. Still, he’s in good company. This Wikipedia page shows just how many famous people have been felled before their time by premature obituaries.

I dedicated an entire chapter of my book to obiticide (and you can read a chapter excerpt here), but that’s hardly put the issue to rest. Just this past year, newspapers have killed off Frank McCourt, Billy Graham (twice!), Muhammad Ali, Pat Robertson and Victor Willis of Village People fame. (Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch to include the last one.) …

Thanks, Leslie!

David Paterson is pictured above in the Hempstead High School 1969 yearbook. A photo yesterday incorrectly showed another student in some editions. Link