Regret the Error

CORRECTION – An earlier version of this story referred to Cain having a ‘cedar-quality’ mustache. The proper term is ‘theater-quality.’ Link Thanks, James!  Report an error

A young reporter named Kendra Marr resigned from Politico last week after it was discovered she had plagiarized the work of other publications. She did it at least seven times. Politico’s top editors revealed the serial theft in an editor’s note published Thursday night. In typical Politico fashion, they moved quickly after being alerted to [...]

This lengthy editor’s note from Politico is notable for the fact that is never uses the word plagiarism, even though it’s explicitly about a case of serial plagiarism: … Late in the evening of Wednesday, October 12, the writer of a piece about transportation policy published in the New York Times e-mailed one of our [...]

An earlier version of this story carried an incorrect dateline and reported the wrong location for where Rep. Bachmann made her incorrect historical statement about Lexington and Concord. Link Even more meta? The headline of this piece is "For Michele Bachmann, a pattern of getting facts wrong." Thanks, Bas!  Report an error

From Politico: When it comes to typos and spelling, everyone makes mistakes… even the White House.  In a White House press release sent Tuesday evening, there's a misspelling, and it's a big one: The first lady's first name.  "Michele and I are deeply saddened by the loss of life, injuries, and damage that have occurred [...]

I forgot to add a link to my Columbia Journalism Review column from last week, which provides journalists with a wealth of advice and resources for online verification. An excerpt: Content Analysis Author – Is someone identified as the author of the site or article? Google them, look for a personal website. If their byline [...]

Slate published an interesting article by Jeremy Singer-Vine about “What the politics Web site [Politico] deletes from its articles without telling anyone.” From the piece: … How often does Politico, in the din of the news cycle, make significant changes to its copy after publishing it—without telling readers? Part of the answer, of course, depends [...]

An earlier version of this story conflated two non-existent audio tapes of Michelle Obama. Link Thanks, David!  Report an error