In our article on January 15, “I’m too scared to go shopping on my own admits police chief”, we reported on a dispute over comments published in the Police Review about Peter Vaughan, the new Chief Constable of the South Wales Police. The Police Review reported that Mr Vaughan had said, in an interview with them, that he could not now do his own shopping for security reasons.

We have been asked to point out that the Police Review have accepted that Mr Vaughan did not say this, that they have apologised to him for their misunderstanding and any embarrassment they may have caused due to the regional and national media picking up or commenting on the story. Link

Update March 6, 2010: The Times (U.K.) also published this correction/apology:

A report and leader (“Danger, what danger? The police chief who says he just can’t pop into Tesco any more” and “Shopping Maul”, January 15) referred to comments reportedly made by Peter Vaughan, the Chief Constable of South Wales Police, about his personal security in an interview with Police Review. We now understand, and accept, that Mr Vaughan did not make those comments and note that Police Review has apologised for its mistake. We are happy to correct the record and apologise for any embarrassment caused.

Update March 20, 2010: From the Guardian:

An article Chatty, friendly policemen? They won’t try that again (15 January, page 34) referred to comments reportedly made by Peter Vaughan, the chief constable of South Wales police, in an interview with Police Review, about his personal security. Police Review has since accepted that Mr Vaughan did not make those comments and has apologised for its mistake. We are happy to correct the record and apologise to Mr Vaughan for any embarrassment caused.

We have been asked to make clear that Edgar Wright’s appreciation of Edward Woodward, which appeared in the paper on Tuesday, November 17, was abridged and the full version can be read at www.edgarwrighthere.com/2009/11/edward-woodward-1930-2009/

Actually, the paper was asked to acknowledge the fact that it took Wright’s blog post and published an excerpt of it without his knowledge or permission — or any mention that the words had been taken from his blog. This “clarification” clarifies nothing. The Times stole the piece.

Here’s what Wright posted on his Twitter feed after seeing the story:

Background here and here.

Our 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!

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.

Correction 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.

“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.

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).

Thanks, Daniel!

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)…