Tag Archives: times uk

Indeed, no place for a gentleman

November 10, 2009 – 8:00 am

timesukOn November 5 we translated the name of Ed and Nancy Kienholz’s artwork at the National Gallery, The Hoerengracht, as ‘Gentlemen’s Canal’. This should have read ‘Whore’s Canal’. We apologise for the error.

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

Somebody blew it

August 31, 2009 – 8:00 am

timesukKeva McKibbin ("Modern Weddings", Magazine, August 22) did not say that she was "blown off her face" when she first met her husband, but that she was "blown off her feet". We apologise for any embarrassment caused by our reporter’s mishearing. 

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

Times (U.K.) apologizes for accidental plagiarism*

July 20, 2009 – 8:00 am

timesukOur report "Jools Holland’s castle joins band of at-risk monuments" (June 23) referred to Saltwood Castle in Kent and its owner Jane Clark, who has succeeded in having Saltwood removed from English Heritage’s at-risk register. The information and quotes about Saltwood were taken from an article by Robin Stummer in the latest edition of Cornerstone, the magazine of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, but that attribution was cut from our reporter’s original copy in the editing process. We apologise for the error and for any embarrassment it has caused.

*Correction July 21: The word plagiarism was misspelled in the original version of this headline. Thanks, Charlene!

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

Times of London corrects article about Wikipedia errors

February 10, 2009 – 8:00 am

timesukThis a bit meta.
Giles Hattersley wrote an article for the Sunday Times (London) that reported Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales would soon make “a controversial proposal to ensure that changes to the most popular wiki-pages are vetted before they go live.” The goal of the proposal was to help reduce factual errors and vandalism on the site. Soon after the story was published, Hattersley came under fire for making an error of his own. From a blog post by the Daily Telegraph’s Shane Richmond:

Giles Hattersley, writing in today’s Times, bemoans the inaccuracy of Wikipedia. Regular readers of this blog will know that I disagree completely but that’s not why I’m writing.
Giles writes: “My entry features at least two errors, one libellous (unless my mother has been keeping a dark secret, I am not Roy Hattersley’s son).”
Yet I can’t find an entry for Giles Hattersley in Wikipedia. And, as Martin Belam points out, it doesn’t look like there has ever been one.
Journalists should always strive for accuracy and such an error in an article about inaccuracy looks very silly. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Hattersley later posted an explanation on, of all places, Wikipedia:

As to this thing about a Wikipedia entry – as far as I know, I’ve never had one. I think the line must have been tweaked at some stage (not by me) from talking about mentions of my name on the site to an actual entry. The mistake pointed out in the piece, was pointed out to me a year or two ago in some corresponding page where my name cropped up – either Roy Hattersley’s entry, or a third party’s page. I’m glad to hear it no longer exists!

Okay, so perhaps it was an editing error. But also note that Hattersley doesn’t seem to know when and where he came upon the incorrect Wikipedia reference to himself. Based on the above, it was pointed out to him on “some corresponding page” by somebody at some point over the last two years. And now it no longer exists. Shouldn’t he have checked the reference before putting it in the story?

To close the circle, the Times has appended an Editor’s Note to the original article:

This article has been updated to reflect Giles Hattersley’s original, which was changed during editing of the print edition of the Sunday Times. The sentence that read, “My entry features at least two errors, one libellous.” has now reverted to, “Mentions of me feature at least two errors (unless my mother has been keeping a dark secret, I am not Roy Hattersley’s son).”

To summarize: some Wikipedia entries contain factual errors, as do some newspaper articles about Wikipedia’s inaccuracies.

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

The headline’s a bit of a problem

January 28, 2009 – 8:00 am

timesukCorrection On Jnuary 20 we published a story headed “Sheikh overturns tribunal decision”, referring to an appeal decision involving Sheikh Maher al-Tajir. We have been asked to point out that it was Lady Smith, sitting with two lay members, who overturned the decision of the employment tribunal. We did not intend to suggest that the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal was the result of any improper influence having been brought to bear by the Sheikh and apologise if this may have mislead readers..

Yes, “Jnuary” is a typo.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Comments

Headline goes down the tube

January 16, 2009 – 8:00 am

timesukContrary to our report “Baird’s original dream goes down the tube as the last British television factory closes” (January 14), Toshiba has asked us to point out that it is still making large-screen televisions at its Plymouth factory. We are happy to set the record straight.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Comments

Old school corrections from the Times (U.K.)

November 25, 2008 – 8:00 am

Rose Wild writes a fascinating blog about the treasures found within the archives of the Times (U.K.). She recently went hunting for corrections (or errata*, as they used to be known) and turned up some examples from the 18th and 19th centuries.

“The cryptic way they’re worded doesn’t seem to have changed much in 200-odd years and it’s sometimes tempting to go back to the original article to see what on earth they’re about,” Wild writes. “On reflection though, I think they’re mainly more enjoyable in their own right, with their mysteries intact.”

Wild is right that corrections from 100 or 200 years ago don’t seem all that different from the more recent variety. Modernize the language a bit and they could have been published yesterday. Antique corrections drive home the point that journalists have been making the same errors for a very long time:

October 21, 1840: Erratum. In our leading article of yesterday on on the Eastern question, paragraph 8, line 1, for “If on being beaten out of Eygpt,” read, “If on being beaten out of Syria.” The error, however, was one which must have been at once detected by the reader.

Another one from Wild’s collection:

December 28, 1836: Erratum. A rather awkward mistake occurred in our journal of yesterday in what is technically called “the making up” of the paper. The last 14 lines of the first leading article were transferred to an article from a correspondent, headed “the Church Commission,” and the last 14 lines of that correspondent’s article on the Church Commission were made to take the place of the last 14 lines of the first leading article.

The New York Times’ digital archive is also home to some good finds. Here’s one I used in my book. From June 12, 1852:

WE ARE ASSURED BY THE FRIENDS of Mr. William O’Conner, that the account of his insanity, given by our reporter yesterday, was entirely unfounded. He is of sound mind, and has not been missing, as was reported. We cheerfully make the correction.

*Correction Dec. 14: This sentence origially used the word “errratum” instead of “errata.” As reader Paul noted: “Not only did you add an extra ‘r’ in your copy, you used the wrong Latin tense. Erratum is singular; the plural (for ‘corrections’) is errata. Luckily the nuns who drilled this into me have appeared on the obits page and will not come down to punish you.” Indeed. Thank you, Paul.

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

Media-on-media clarification

July 25, 2008 – 11:21 am

The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade took note of this Times clarification:

In the Media Business section on Friday July 4 Dan Sabbagh drew a parallel between the Telegraph Group and Trinity Mirror, which has a £1.5bn pension fund and has a debt liability of approximately £425m. The Telegraph Group has asked us to make clear that it has no pension fund liability and it has more than sufficient funds to discharge all of its borrowings whenever it chooses. We are happy to clarify the situation and regret any misunderstanding.

He writes:

You hardly need to read between the lines to intuit what brought this about. It is a further example of the Barclay brothers crying foul against a paper they have previously sued. I rather imagine they began with another legal threat before agreeing to the compromise. (And I’d lay odds it was Sir David who led the charge).

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Comments

Times of London admits David Gest doesn’t have herpes

May 23, 2008 – 2:15 pm

In Weekend TV (times2, May 5) we incorrectly suggested that David Gest had been given herpes by Liza Minnelli on their wedding night. This was entirely wrong. David Gest has never had the disease and has never actually accused Ms Minnelli of giving it to him. We apologise to Mr Gest for any embarrassment or distress caused by this mistake. Link (bottom of the page)

Thanks, Daniel!

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

Of mother and daughter

May 19, 2008 – 8:00 am

Yesterday we referred inaccurately to the case of Joanne and Natasha Coombs in an article (Reunited in death, News) which also transposed their names. Both died on the same stretch of railway last year. While Joanne Coombs committed suicide, an inquest jury returned the verdict that the death of her teenage daughter, Natasha, was accidental. We regret the error.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Comments

Apology

April 7, 2008 – 8:00 am

The London Times has a laugh at the expense of Loaded magazine:

Apology of the month comes from Loaded, the little boys’ magazine, which somehow persuaded itself that Heinz once supplied the Nazi regime with a version of alphabet spaghetti consisting of tiny swastikas. This is an urban myth. “We now accept that Heinz has never produced swastika shaped spaghetti nor did it support the Nazi regime in any other way. Indeed, we accept that Heinz was a major contributor to the Allies’ war efforts, producing rations for the troops,” the magazine admits dolefully. Ein Reich! Ein Volk! Ein Spaghetti!. Link

Not that the Times has ever had to make an apology (or failed to make one when it was appropriate)…

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

Pseudo-apology

April 2, 2008 – 8:00 am

We may owe an apology to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Last month we dubbed it “Whitehall’s answer to Sir Elton John” after it emerged that it had spent £ 46,000 on pot plants in two years. Now we learn that staff at the Department for Children, Schools and Families spent £ 78,000 on pot plants in a single year. The crown, thus, is theirs.

More here.

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

Not a terrorist

June 4, 2007 – 8:00 am

In two articles published last year (”Cyanide fear triggered terror raid” and “Bomb suspect ’shot without warning’”, June 4) we stated that government officials had said Abul Koyair, the brother of Abdul Kahar (who was shot by police when they raided the family home on June 2) had a number of criminal convictions and that their parents had gone on a planned holiday despite what had happened to their sons. We now understand, and accept, that that information was not true, that the decision to raid the family’s home was based on false intelligence and that the family have never been involved in terrorism. We apologise for any embarrassment caused. Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Major Errors, Newspapers | Comments Off

The Morien Jones apologies, continued

September 15, 2006 – 8:01 am

We’ve been cataloging the apologies offered to Morien Jones by UK newspapers (read one of the apologies for some background), and now there are a few more to add to the pile. Actually, a lot more. We can’t recall another recent UK story that caused so many apologies. Read the previous apology from the Yorkshire Post, and this one from The Independent. And now for the rest:

  • BBC apology (at end of article)
  • Times (UK) apology and Press Complaints Commission decision
  • Daily Mail apology
  • News and Star apology
  • The Daily Telegraph also issued a written apology to Mr. Jones, but it has not published anything publicly. (We’ve removed the Telegraph apology and a BBC letter of apology from this site until Mr. Jones gives us the okay to put them back up.)
  • We’re told more are in the works…
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