The Torontoist blog spotted this correction in the Toronto alt weekly Eye:
Incorrect information was published in “O’Donnell-land” (cover story, April 9). Darren O’Donnell spent three days in Toronto General hospital, not three months. He has neither experienced nor has he been diagnosed with schizophrenia. EYE WEEKLY regrets the errors.
Torontoist also notes that the errors have been scrubbed out of the online version of the article.
Roughly three weeks ago, the website of Sports Illustrated reported that NFL draft prospect B.J. Raji had tested positive for marijuana at the NFL combine. The story was widely quoted but it also drew criticism, especially after Raji’s agent disputed the tale. Days later, SI scrubbed the story off its site. The FanHouse asked SI to explain why it removed the story and received this statement:
We have investigated the claims of Mr. Raji’s agent and although we have several credible sources for the report we have decided to take it down while we continue reporting the story.
So you just disappear the story rather than explain that you now have doubts about it? The report finally earned a correction this week after the NFL released the list of players who tested positive at the combine. Raji wasn’t on it. Here’s the correction:
An SI.com report posted earlier this month incorrectly stated that Boston College defensive tackle B.J. Raji’s name would appear on the NFL’s list of players who tested positive for drugs at the NFL Scouting Combine in February. We regret the error.
SI did Raji a major disservice by going with the initial report, scrubbing it, and then publishing a weak correction. Where’s the apology, and explanation of how the error occurred? From the FanHouse:
Posting a correction was obviously the right thing to do, but questions remain about why SI got this story wrong and why it took so long to correct its mistake. I have attempted to contact Pauline, and he has not responded to my messages. It’s a shame that after Pauline and SI were so quick to report this erroneous information, they’ve now been so slow to accept responsibility.
UPDATE: The New York Post published this correction on April 23:
Based on a report that originated on SI.com, The Post reported on April 20 that Boston College defensive tackle B.J. Raji’s name would appear on the NFL’s list of players who tested positive for drugs at the Scouting Combine in February. This was incorrect. Mr. Raji did not test positive for drugs at the Combine. The Post regrets the error.
The Daily Targum, a student paper at Rutgers, last week published an editorial decrying a bill in North Dakota that would cause “a picture of a fertilized egg… [to be] considered child pornography.” As you can imagine, the bill in question had no such measure. The paper was fooled by a satirical article. The Targum scrubbed its editorial off the site and offered an apology, though that also seems to have disappeared. From the editorial, which is cached here:
…Pregnant women in North Dakota may now not be able to celebrate and show off their unborn baby the way society has traditionally accepted.
The North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill that states a picture of a fertilized egg is now considered child pornography. It is now going to the North Dakota Senate to be voted on. This bill, if passed, will make it possible for women and men who have a sonogram as their profile picture on Facebook to be arrested and put on a sex offender registry list…
Here’s an excerpt of the apology, as published in the grand Forks Herald:
The editorial ‘Sonograms, child porn’ ” which ran in (a recent) opinions section was completely inaccurate and based on false sources. No bill has been passed in North Dakota that states a picture of a fertilized egg is now considered child pornography. … We wrote an editorial based on what we later learned was a satirical piece. …We at the Targum deeply regret the error …please accept our deepest apologies for not checking our sources.
Two recent columns by newspaper ombudsmen caught my eye. Kathy English, public editor of the Toronto Star, wrote her latest column about the paper’s policy regarding the “unpublishing” of articles. An excerpt:
… Generally, the Star believes that unpublishing is a serious act as it erases the online history of the Star’s journalism. The Star’s policy on this states that while we indeed take seriously concerns of inaccuracy and will correct articles online, just as we do in the newspaper, we do not unpublish articles from our websites. This policy here is similar to that of other major newspapers, including the Washington Post, The New York Times and the Guardian.
If the Star ascertains that a mistake has been published, we correct it. Online, that means editing the text and also appending notes to the articles to tell readers that a correction has been made.
“Just as in print, the Star stands behind what it publishes online. Our purpose is to disclose information, not to hide information because it makes someone unhappy,” says Neil Sanderson, the Star’s assistant managing editor, digital. “If things started disappearing from our websites, readers might suspect that we were trying to conceal an error.
“As well, the stories that we publish are part of the historical record of our city, our province and our country,” he said. “To remove these stories from our archive would leave holes in our history.”
Derek Donovan, readers’ representative at the Kansas City Star, dedicated his end of year column to thanking readers for helping the paper correct errors. Excerpt:
One of my most important jobs at The Kansas City Star is tracking the corrections that run on Page A-2, and I was recently reminded how vital a role readers play in that process …
While appending a correction last Friday, I remembered vividly the caller who’d pointed out the mistake — dollar amounts for police badges that didn’t make sense as written. I then flipped through the previous month’s corrections tally and realized just how many of them came directly from readers, many of whom had no personal interest other than a desire to see The Star set the record straight …
The great collective wisdom of readers comes from the thousands of specialists who follow the news related to their specific areas of interest. I know I can always rely on military buffs to pick apart inaccurate descriptions of the patches on soldiers’ uniforms, or proud moms and dads who let me know when a school has sent in an incomplete team roster or honor roll. No mistake is truly trivial.
So I offer a sincere thanks to you, the readers. You’re directly responsible for alerting me to a huge percentage of those errors that result in corrections (435 so far this year). The Star is obviously far from perfect, but your attention to detail makes it better.
This week’s edition of my Columbia Journalism Review Daily column is online here. Inspired by the example of Wales Online (background), I look at the issue of scrubbing. Here’s the opening of the column:
Scrubbing Away Their Sins
We used to be able to throw out the news; to disappear it.
The morning paper would find its way into the trash. A radio or television newscast would float off into the ether. It’s a cliché to say it by now, but the Web has changed that.
Articles and broadcasts now reside in online archives, are quoted or embedded on blogs, and republished on other news sites. Google keeps a snapshot of the original page cached on its servers. The new permanence of news makes it more important than ever to initially get a story right, lest an error rocket around the world. But when prevention fails, a suitable correction must follow. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen …
Earlier this morning, a story on the New York Daily News’ website reported that New York Rangers forward Sean Avery “was rushed to a Manhattan hospital Wednesday morning in cardiac arrest just hours after his team’s playoff loss.” The story also reported that Avery was “unconscious and not breathing.”
The information was attributed to “sources” — and it was far from the truth. In fact, Avery suffered a lacerated spleen. He did visit a hospital, but he was conscious, breathing, and not in cardiac arrest.
Roughly an hour after the News story went online, the Rangers issued a statement that contained the correct information. Canadian media outlets also ran stories with the correct information. So, how did the News correct its false report?
It didn’t. The paper scrubbed the story of its former claims and didn’t include a correction. Hockeyfights.com has a screengrab of the original story (and a great timeline of events). Now compare it with the post-scrub version.
Presto, no errors! No ethics, either.
The News sent hockey reporters and blogs into a frenzy with its shocking scoop and then tried to act like nothing happened. It’s ridiculous to have to point out that the paper has a responsibility to issue a correction and explain how the error occurred. Did a good source give it bad information? Did the reporters misunderstand the information they were given? There could be any number of reasons, but the News has chosen to scrub the record clean and remain silent. As is frequently the case today, other journalists and bloggers aren’t letting them get away with it.
Scrubbing is a fundamentally dishonest practice. Sure, you can fix a typo that doesn’t cause a factual error, or that doesn’t change the meaning of a sentence. But scrubbing even a minor factual error is unethical. It’s an attempt to save face that breaks the corrections contract (”if we make an error, we’ll correct it in a public manner”) that the press is supposed to have with readers.
Thanks to Andrew Bucholtz for the tip.
