The BBC, which covered the fake news, published a report today revealing the hoax:

The story was reported by many high profile organisations including CNN, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and Forbes.
Questions about the authenticity of the story were raised by readers of the BBC website who established that the company which put out the research – ApTiquant – appeared to have only set up its website in the past month.
Thumbnail images of the firm’s staff on the website also matched those on the site of French research company Central Test, although many of the names had been changed.
The BBC contacted Central Test who confirmed that they had been made aware of the copy but had no knowledge of ApTiquant or its activities.

Wired.com did a good job highlighting some of the red flags that should have warned journalists off the story:

• AptiQuant had no footprint, no history of past studies of either intelligence or technology, despite claiming to have been a “world leader in the field of online psychometric testing” since 2006;
• The assessment tool was a free online IQ test delivered through search engine ads. This might be a valid methodology for generating spammy pop-ups, but not scientific study. (Snarky aside: we’re supposed to believe that Opera users clicking these ads have an average “superior intelligence” IQ of 125?)
• AptiQuant’s mailing address (if deliverable) would be in the middle of an intersection in downtown Vancouver.
• This paragraph:

The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual’s cognitive ability and their choice of web browser. From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. This hypothesis can be extended to any software in general, however more research is needed for that, which is a potential future work as an extension to this report.

The fake company’s website now carries this message:

AptiQuant was set up in late July 2011 by comparison shopping website AtCheap.com, in order to launch a fake “study” called “Intelligent Quotient and Browser Usage.” The study claimed that people using Internet Explorer have a below than average IQ score. The study took the IT world by storm. The main purpose behind this hoax was to create awareness about the incompatibilities of IE6, and not to insult or hurt anyone.

Several media outlets published posts admitting they were fooled: Gawker, The Atlantic and NPR.

Readers, I apologize. The premise of my debut column for Reuters, on News Corp’s taxes, was wrong, 100 percent dead wrong.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp did not get a $4.8 billion tax refund for the past four years, as I reported. Instead, it paid that much in cash for corporate income taxes for the years 2007 through 2010 while earning pre-tax profits of $10.4 billion.

For the first time in my 45-year-old career I am writing a skinback. That is what journalists call a retraction of the premise of a piece, as in peeling back your skin and feeling the pain. I will do all I can to make sure everyone who has read or heard secondary reports based on my column also learns the facts and would appreciate the help of readers in that cause.

He goes on to list (in great detail) how he went wrong. Here’s how the column ends:

When more than a day after the column was posted, a News Corp publicist called me, I had already discovered the mistake and told her it was being withdrawn and a correct column written. She also helped me tie down some crucial details, like finding that 2007 disclosure.

I often write tart notes at the Romenesko blog for journalists, the Columbia Journalism Review, Nieman Reports and elsewhere about what I consider flawed reporting by others. I lecture to young reporters around the world on the duty of care they need to take with facts and teach how to check and cross check. Until now I have never made a big mistake, but this is a painful reminder that we all put our pants on one leg at a time. The measure of character, I say in my posts and lectures, is whether when an error is found you forthrightly and promptly correct.

So I hope readers will trust that while I made a whopper of a mistake, it has been corrected forthrightly and promptly.

Over the years I’ve had a few exchanges with Johnston about mistakes and the erosion of accuracy in the press. He always struck me as passionate about accuracy and professionalism. I’m sure this is a tremendously humbling experience for him. It’s a reminder that any of us can make mistakes. That all of us will. But his response is also a reminder that it matters what you do after you discover your error. To get a sense of why that’s the case, read this comment posted on his explanatory/corrective column:

As a layperson, 99% of what you just wrote is complete gobbledygook (wow, that word is somehow acceptable to the Reuters spell check!).

However, I did understand the 1% part of a very clear and conscientious mea culpa.

I’m more inclined to trust the writer’s journalistic integrity after this article, should he ever deign to write about something I would have a snowball’s chance of understanding. I know it must have hurt, but your apology and correction sets a great example and has more impact perhaps than if you’d never made the mistake in the first place. Failures are like that. Depending how you deal with them, they can actually be the foundation for new success.

I hope your editors appreciate that as much as I do. Best of luck and keep up the good work.

I couldn’t have said it better.

What’s encouraging is that NPR issued a correction and editor’s note after Johnston appeared on a program to talk about the mistaken column prior to him realizing his mistake. Here’s the NPR correction:

Editor’s Note: Reuters issued an advisory indicating that the column written by David Cay Johnston, on which this interview with Johnston was based, was wrong:
“Please be advised that the David Cay Johnston column published on Tuesday stating that Rupert Murdoch’s U.S.-based News Corp made money on income taxes is wrong and has been withdrawn. News Corp’s filings show the company changed reporting conventions in its 2007 annual report when it reversed the way it showed positive and negative numbers. A new column correcting and explaining the error in more detail will be issued shortly.”

A transcript of the original interview is now available by clicking on the transcript link at the right of the “listen” box above. Johnston is expected to appear on Morning Edition Thursday to offer further clarification. We will provide updates as they become available.

What’s not encouraging is that the URL for the original Johnston column goes to an error page. Reuters should redirect that URL to the corrective column.

… what happened Tuesday when stories started to come out of Liberty County, Texas, about "dozens" of bodies supposedly being found at a home is worth noting. It underscores again how we in the news media need to remind ourselves sometimes to slow down and let the facts become more clear before we rush to report. And at the very least, to be very careful about what we do say when a story is breaking.

If you haven’t heard, there were news alerts and Twitter posts from local and national news outlets late Tuesday afternoon that 20 to 30 bodies had been discovered on property near Hardin, Texas.

Click2Houston1, the Twitter feed from Houston’s KPRC-TV flat out said there was "Breaking News in Liberty County where dozens of bodies have been found near Daisetta." It had said it was told by the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office that "25 to 30 bodies were reported on a property at the intersection of County Roads 2049 and 2048."

The New York Times sent its Twitter followers this message: "NYT NEWS ALERT: Up to 30 Dismembered Bodies Found Near Houston, Reuters Reports."

Reuters, saying it was relying on "local media" reports, had reported that "Texas authorities find up to 30 bodies, including children."Within an hour, the story changed dramatically.

As The Associated Press writes this morning, "the investigation into a tip about multiple bodies being buried at a rural Texas farmhouse has now turned to the tipster after authorities turned up nothing in a search of the property." It seems that "authorities said the tip came from a woman claiming to be a psychic" and they took it seriously because of details she told them regarding the home and property. But they found nothing …

– via “‘Texas Bodies’ Nonstory Is Reminder To News Media: Slow Down,” a blog post from NPR.

The new ombudsman is Edward Schumacher-Matos.

As is often the case, this led to a lot of mistakes — including reports from NPR, Reuters, CNN, Fox News and others that said Rep. Giffords had died. I've collected the mistaken reports and other notable reaction and commentary from Twitter in a Storify story below.

Update January 9: For those interested in figuring out the right way to correct tweets, I offered some best practices in this previous CJR column. And I also previously suggested that Twitter enable a correction function.

Update January 9 #2: I collected other notable commentary about the media errors in this post.

Let me know if I'm missing any notable tweets or reporting:

NPR's ombudsman has more on how his correction came to be published:

Thanks to one persistent listener, NPR published a correction admitting that it has mistakenly – and more than once – inflated the number of State Department diplomatic cables released recently by WikiLeaks.

Since the cables first became public on Nov. 28, NPR had repeatedly referred to “thousands” of confidential State Department cables. In reality, as of December 30, 2010, only 1,947 are publicly available.

Here’s a hat tip to Henry Norr, a San Francisco listener who frequently complains about NPR's news coverage. He first contacted to me on Dec. 13. about this NPRWikiLeaks story.

“Do you guys just make stuff up and present it as fact?” Norr asked in an email. “You begin your ‘review’ of this story by saying  ‘First, the website released thousands of confidential U.S. documents.’ That's simply not true. All you have to do is go to the website in question and you'll see that it has thus far released precisely 1,344 of the documents in question – less than one percent of the 251,287 apparently in their possession. 1,344 is not 'thousands'!" …

MediBugs is also drawing attention to other news organizations that have made similar mistakes about the WikiLeaks documents.

Our critic mistakenly said that an ice age "marked the death of the dinosaurs," rather than their advent. In fact, neither is true. The text of the review has been updated.

*Correction July 3: Speaking of failure, the word "Jurassic" was misspelled in this headline. It has been corrected. Thanks, Kate!