Regret the Error » vague corrections

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:00:24 +0000

A story on page I1 Saturday said the sister of interior designer Darlene Provost, Lynn Dunn (nee Provost), had died after battling cancer. That information was incorrect.

Thanks, Doug!

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:30:19 +0000

An article in Friday’s Life section incorrectly identified Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi.

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:30:08 +0000

A sentence in a letter to the editor by Bernie Magnan on Monday should have read, “Over two-thirds of Canadian property and violent crimes are never reported,” but, owing to an editing error, did not.

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:00:37 +0000

Corporal Pat Prefontaine, quoted in a story on Friday, did not apply the adjective “clueless” to parents of partying teenagers.

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:00:23 +0000

Incorrect information about Jake Morgenstern was submitted and published in the May 25 Kanawha Valley Neighbors “Your Neighbors” feature. We apologize for the error.

Wakka wakka

Craig Silverman — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:00:15 +0000

A reference to the Muppets, originally included in this post, was taken out of context and has been removed. Apologies to Fozzie Bear & Co. Link

Jared Diamond and the puzzling correction

Craig Silverman — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:00:53 +0000

DeBerry column based on article: On Dec. 9, 2008, The Times-Picayune published a column by Jarvis DeBerry titled “Justice deferred,” in which DeBerry referenced an article published in The New Yorker on April 28, 2008, written by Jared Diamond titled “Vengeance is ours; what can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?” DeBerry has no personal knowledge of the events described in the Diamond article, and neither DeBerry nor The Times-Picayune conducted any independent investigation into the events described in the Diamond article.

The above is a confusing correction. It becomes easier to understand when you know that Diamond’s New Yorker article came under heavy scrutiny by the folks at Stinky Journalism. They launched a detailed investigation into the story and produced witnesses and facts that disputed major parts of Diamond’s story. (I wrote a related column for Columbia Journalism Review.) So my guess is the Time-Picayune repeated some of the disputed allegations from Diamond’s piece and then saw the need to clarify.

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:00:49 +0000

An Oct. 20 headline in our tech-science section erroneously reported an Apple product announcement. Link

So who did?

Craig Silverman — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:00:40 +0000

Sanjeev Kaila was not the surgeon who performed a gastric balloon procedure on Kyriaki Antoniou. Incorrect information appeared in Thursday's section.

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:00:37 +0000

Metro Pest Control has never been called to inspect or treat City Hall for bedbugs.

And we don’t know who it is

Craig Silverman — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:59:37 +0000

A PHOTO IN Sunday’s Daily News incorrectly identified a member of the Newburgh Free Academy swim team as Michael Mele, a person of interest in the disappearance of Laura Garza. The young man circled in the picture is not Mele.

Care to elaborate?

Craig Silverman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:00:03 +0000

“Paul Milde’s Dec. 8 op-ed ["Control growth? OK, but do it transparently"] should not have included the following sentence: “Since that time, not a single affected homeowner has experienced failure of primary or reserve fields.”
Instead, it should have included the following: “Of the homes in Stafford that have had to resort to ‘pump and haul’ because of bad soils and failed septic systems, the youngest of those was 25 years old. Most were much older.” We regret the error. Link

Bit of a confusing correction, no?

And that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:00:09 +0000

A photograph of Gary Kerhoulas incorrectly appeared in yesterday’s Business section.
The Free Press regrets the error.

Ottawa Citizen publishes highly questionable quotes

Craig Silverman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:00:29 +0000

An Editor’s Note:
A story on page B1 of the April 5 edition of the Citizen, which looked at the future of NATO, should not have included quotes attributed to Clifford Gaddy, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Mr. Gaddy was not interviewed by the Citizen for that article, and the Brookings Institution says that the quotes incorrectly attributed to him do not reflect his actual views.

So were the quotes fabricated? Plagiarized from another source? How did this happen? And why can’t/won’t the paper explain the origin of the quotes to readers?

Here are the relevant passages from the article, which is not online:

“What confuses matters is that the two pillars of Bush’s legacy plan — developing a better relationship with Russia and promoting democracy through NATO in Eastern Europe — appear to be in conflict with each other,” says Clifford Gaddy, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institute, another Washington think-tank. “The result is he might wind up achieving neither.”

Ukraine and Georgia provide another contradiction, Mr. Gaddy notes. Support for NATO membership might be high among ex-patriates in Canada and the U.S., but polls suggest the people actually living in the two countries are not so sure.

“In Ukraine, there is still lingering suspicion of NATO left over from the Cold War,” he says, “and while there might not be a lot of love for the Russians, people see the advantages of not provoking them. It’s a pretty even split.”

Note that the Brookings Institution is incorrectly identified as the “Brookings Institute” in the article. That error is not corrected in the Editor’s Note.

From further down in the story:

For his part, Mr. Gaddy of the Brookings Institute contends that NATO, one tier or not, is as valuable as ever to the U.S. in a world where the rise of China as a great power, combined with the muscle of a resurgent Russia across Eurasia, requires the counterweight of an North American-European alliance

Thanks, Doug!

But that’s all we’re telling you

Craig Silverman — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:00:36 +0000

ON Oct 29 we carried a report headlined ‘Director sues woman for allegedly giving him herpes’. It has come to our attention that various matters stated in the article may not be accurate. We regret the bad publicity and any inconvenience caused to Ms June Quah and her family. Link (sub req’d)

This was originally published on Dec. 29, and the offending piece is here. Why not correct the “various matters” that were inaccurate?

Thanks, Steve!