Tag Archives: source errors

Source of error

October 30, 2009 – 8:00 am

nytbanner1The Big City column on Tuesday, about Terri White, an actress who is back on Broadway in “Finian’s Rainbow” a year after an eviction left her homeless, overstated her professional achievements, based on information provided by Ms. White. Although she was featured in the Tony-nominated “Barnum” in 1980, she did not herself earn a nomination. Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged | Comments

Sources of error

October 26, 2009 – 8:00 am

torstar1An Aug. 20 Living section article about the lack of services for homeless gay and lesbian youth featured the experience of a young man, Solomon Christiansen. The article reported that Christiansen felt he had no where to turn, left home, dropped out of school and began taking drugs because his mother’s boyfriend couldn’t accept his homosexuality. As well, the photo caption said that Christiansen lived on the street for a year.
However, the Star failed to validate these claims with Christiansen’s mother’s friend or to present this man’s side of the story.
The man, who was not named in the article, rejects the teen’s claims and the article’s suggestion that homophobia caused the teen to leave home.
The man further says that Christiansen was never homeless and that he received family help in seeking alternative living arrangements in the neighbourhood and in paying his rent and some living expenses.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged | Comments

Slate story about rapper’s questionable claims leads to NY Daily News correction

September 7, 2009 – 4:34 pm

nydailynewsI placed a link to this remarkable Slate story on the What I’m Reading sidebar on this site last week. Now the New York Daily News has finally responded to the evidence uncovered by Slate. The News published this correction on Friday:

AN AUG. 23 Daily News story by a freelance reporter about the hip-hop artist Roxanne Shanté contained several statements that were, or may be, false.

Shanté told the reporter that she earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University, a statement that was confirmed in several publications on Cornell’s Web site. But the university has now informed us that it has no record of Shanté ever attending the school.

In addition, Shanté’s story that her early recording contract with Warner Music contained a clause under which the record company was obligated to pay for her education for life has been called into serious doubt in recent media reports.

Numerous attempts by the freelance reporter to find out about the contract from Warner Brothers Records led nowhere. Warner Music Group now claims it never had a contract with Shanté – only a distribution agreement with her label – and a former lawyer for the label says he is "confident" its contract with Shanté contained no education clause.

Shanté also claimed in the article that a dean at Marymount College helped her force Warner to honor the clause and obtain more than $200,000 in education expenses. But, after refusing to return numerous calls and e-mails during the preparation of the article, Marymount now states that Shanté attended the college for less than one semester.

Thanks, Eugene!

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Major Errors, Newspapers | Also tagged , | Comments

How not to get started in Hollywood

June 24, 2009 – 8:00 am

apIn a June 15 story about DF Indie Studios, The Associated Press reported erroneous claims by the company and founders Mary Dickinson and Charlene Fisher. In a news release and in interviews, DF Indie Studios and the founders said their movies will be produced by such Hollywood figures as Ridley and Tony Scott. Dickinson and Fisher also said they had $300 million in loans and distribution deals and were halfway to raising $100 million in equity. However, DF Indie Studios now acknowledges that it has not finalized its line of credit, its equity investments or all of its distribution deals. And a representative for the Scotts’ production company says it has no business or contractual relationship with DF Indie Studios. Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Wire service | Also tagged | Comments

Of bites and blasphemy

April 9, 2009 – 8:00 am

times-picaySuspect gave wrong address: A story in Tuesday’s editions about Mario Vargas, who was arrested Saturday after being accused of taking a bite out of a Metairie man’s arm, listed Vargas’ address as 724 Camp St., New Orleans, according to a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrest report. An official from St. Patrick’s Church, located at the address, said Vargas does not live there and has no ties to the church. Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged | Comments

Kids today…

March 16, 2009 – 8:00 am

austinstatesman1In a story about coffee bars in high schools that appeared on Page One on Feb. 19, a Lake Travis High School student who claimed to drink as many as five coffee-flavored shakes a day falsely identified herself as Erica Bonin . School officials said they could not confirm the identity of the student who did speak with the reporter. Attempts by the Statesman to reach the student or her parents by phone have been unsuccessful. Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged | Comments

CJR Column: Self-interested sources

March 6, 2009 – 3:29 pm

cjrMy Columbia Journalism Review online column for this week looks at unreliable sources. An excerpt is below; click on the headline to read the full column.

Sources of Error

He spoke with a polished English accent, once shared a crème brûlée torte with Hillary Clinton, and spent part of the summer officiating tennis at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Charles Carlson gave every indication that he was a student worth watching at the University of Minnesota when he sat down for an interview with the Minnesota Daily, a student newspaper, during the Democratic National Convention in August. Carlson was an at-large delegate at the convention. He later announced his candidacy for the Minneapolis City Council.
“He was a Beijing Olympics tennis official and is a University graduate student, GLBT rights advocate and director of operations at a Minneapolis architecture firm,” read the Daily’s story about him. “Is there anything Charles Carlson doesn’t do?”
This week the paper answered its own question: tell the truth. An investigation published on Monday by the Daily revealed that Carlson had lied about many of his achievements.
There was no communal torting with Hillary, and he didn’t officiate at the Olympics. Carlson grew up and went to school in Minnesota, which meant his transcripts from Phillips Exeter Academy, Princeton University and two schools in England were forged. When confronted with the evidence, he admitted that he suffers from a mental illness for which he was once institutionalized. The English accent disappeared, too.
“I spent six years being a gay nothing that people just made fun of, and then when I was discharged I found out that people would believe anything you told them,” he told the Daily.
Carlson is far from alone in discovering that members of the public and journalists, be they student reporters or veteran scribes, will often take the facts at face value. An old saying in journalism holds that, “If your grandmother tells you she loves you, check it out.” It’s good advice, but rarely followed…

By Craig Silverman | Posted in CJR Column, Regret Articles | Comments

Love you too, bro

November 28, 2008 – 8:00 am

Dean Sullivan, 43, was arrested on charges of possessing heroin, crystal meth and materials used to make crystal meth after a car was pulled over Sunday in the Clinton-Bailey area. When he was arrested, he gave police the name of his brother, Tyrone Sullivan, who is not charged. As a result, a report in some editions Tuesday was inaccurate. Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged , | Comments

NY Times publishes Editors’ Note after source admits to “exaggerated” story

July 9, 2008 – 2:47 pm

A front-page picture caption on June 26 describing an 11-month-old boy whose legs were in casts stated that his legs were broken and that his mother said the injuries were caused by an episode of state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe. After the picture and an accompanying article that also described the injuries were published, The New York Times took the boy to a medical clinic in Harare for help. When the casts were removed, medical workers there discovered the boy had club feet. Doctors said on Monday that X-rays of the baby’s legs showed no evidence of bone fractures.
The mother subsequently admitted that she had exaggerated injuries she said had been sustained by the boy during an attack by governing party militia. In multiple interviews, she said that youths backing President Robert Mugabe had thrown her son to the concrete floor — and she still says that event did occur.
The owner of the house where she and the baby were staying confirmed that marauding youths from the governing party had attacked the house. He said he believed the baby had been thrown to the floor during the attack, but the owner was in a different room and did not witness it firsthand. The landlord, other lodgers, neighbors and opposition supporters also confirmed that the mother had been singled out because her husband was an opposition member.
The mother, however, later told The Times that the boy had been wearing casts even at the time of the attack, as part of a treatment he had received for his club feet at a different medical facility. She said she misrepresented the boy’s injuries to generate help because she could not afford corrective surgery for the boy. Link

Bill Keller told Editor & Publisher the photographer did nothing wrong by taking the boy to get medical attention.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged , | Comments

Police photo error implicates wrong man

March 4, 2008 – 8:00 am

Because of an incorrect photo provided by the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, a Tuesday Express-News story about a slaying suspect was accompanied by a photograph of a San Antonio man who was not connected in any way with the slaying. The story, ‘Transient’s tale ends in arrest,’ was published on Page 1A. The photo did not appear on MySanAntonio.com.
The actual suspect, Robert Patrick White, 38, described by police as a homeless man, is pictured here. White and two others have been charged with the slaying earlier this month of Christopher Duncan, a 23-year-old South Side man.
‘The wrong photo was in the wrong data file,’ Ralph G. Serrano, manager of the central records and identification section of the Sheriff’s Office, said in an e-mail to the Express-News. ‘I apologize for any embarrassment or inconvenience that this may have caused.’
The Express-News also apologizes to the misidentified man, his family and friends and to our readers. Link

And the misidentified man is…?

Thanks, Craig!

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Law Enforcement | Also tagged , | Comments