A headline on Dec. 25 with an article about Herbert and Marion Sandler, bankers and philanthropists whose World Savings Bank originated a type of adjustable-rate mortgage called Pick-a-Pay that has led to many foreclosures as the real estate market and the economy collapsed, described incorrectly the consequences to the Sandlers of the criminal and legal investigations of the practices of the bank, which they sold to Wachovia in 2006. As the article noted, the Sandlers were once trusted mortgage pioneers and now face scrutiny, but they are not “pariahs.” Link
Thoughtless hed
PCC finds Independent article “contained far too much [gory] detail and had not been sufficiently edited.”
The Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint against the Independent. Here’s the finding, as published by the paper:
The Press Complaints Commission has investigated whether an article published on The Independent website under the headline “Chainsaw death was ‘carefully thought through suicide’”, contained excessive detail about the method of suicide used in breach of Clause 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock) of the Code.
The Commission found a breach of the Code.
The article reported the suicide of a man, who had taken his own life using a chainsaw.
The article contained a long and graphic reference to the method of suicide. It set out the precise apparatus that had been constructed by the individual to enable his death.
The newspaper amended the wording of the article as soon as the concern was brought to its attention by an interested party, removing all the detail.
Decision: Upheld
Adjudication:
Clause 5 (ii) was introduced specifically to prohibit the inclusion of detail that would act, in effect, as a blueprint for the method of a suicide. It is crucial that newspapers abide by its terms,in order to minimise the risk of copycat suicides. This means that, particularly in inquest reports (many of which will be provided by external agencies), care needs to be taken in the editing process to remove excessive detail.
On this occasion, the online article contained far too much detail and had not been sufficiently edited. It was a matter of concern that the newspaper had allowed the material to be published on its website. The Commission expected that the situation would not be repeated, as this was a clear breach of the Code.
Apology
The article “Unified standard seen linking mobile world” published yesterday incorrectly stated that telecommunications executive Craig Ehrlich is married to Christine Loh Kung-wai. Statements attributed to Mr Ehrlich that he used the term “wife” to describe his relationship with Ms Loh were in fact not what he said. We apologise for any embarrassment this has caused.
Fuzzy numbers etc.
In a Dec. 21 story about wind-generated energy, The Associated Press incorrectly stated how much money Mike Doyle is paid for having wind turbines on his property. He is paid about $35,000 a year, not $35,000 a month.
No fireworks, but there were corrections
In a January 1 story about new year’s celebrations, the Columbus Dispatch reported that there were fireworks at First Night Columbus’ countdown celebration. Unfortunately, the fireworks didn’t go off. That led to two corrections and a corrective article. First correction:
There were no fireworks Downtown on New Year’s Eve for First Night Columbus. (For an explanation about why, see Page B2 in today’s paper.) Because of incorrect information provided by the organization and an early press deadline, a story that ran on Page A1 yesterday was incorrect. Link
Corrective article:
People expecting fireworks at First Night Columbus’ countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve had to be satisfied with confetti cannons instead.
Organizers originally had intended to shoot off stadium fireworks near the Downtown celebration’s new midnight location at Broad and High streets, but then found out that they needed a permit, First Night spokeswoman Lindsey Weiker said.
Unable to get a permit at the last minute, the group changed its schedule lineup, but it had trouble spreading the word. “It was just a lot of miscommunication,” Weiker said.
For years, the event featured a people’s procession that led to a fireworks show at midnight at Genoa Park on the west bank of the Scioto River, said Mike Collins, First Night director.
But with a new location of the grand-finale extravaganza this year and the recent closing of the Town Street bridge, the group no longer had the option of shooting fireworks over the river, Collins said.
– Encarnacion Pyle
Second correction (to corrective article):
The need for a permit was not a factor in the decision to use confetti cannons instead of stadium fireworks at First Night Columbus’ countdown to midnight. A story on Page B2 of yesterday’s Metro & State section was not clear in explaining that organizers knew they didn’t have a place to set off fireworks once the Town Street bridge was closed. Link
Thanks, Ray!
Is that a raffle ticket or are you just holding a dildo?
On December 6 we published a letter signed by A J Bennett that suggested Mayor Parker was a friend of David Henderson and that the Mayor had been photographed brandishing dildoes and “doobies” or marijuana joints. Through his legal counsel Mayor Parker has confirmed, and we accept, that he is not and never has been a personal friend of Mr Henderson and has never been photographed holding a dildo or a doobie. It was, in fact, a thin raffle ticket. The Press apologises to Mayor Parker for any embarrassment resulting from publishing those errors.
This definitely would have made the ‘08 Crunks if it had been published prior to my year-end post.
Thanks, Sally!
The danger of canned obituaries
Defamer (via LAist) took note of the fact that a pre-written obit for Lena Horne went live on Entertainment Weekly’s website back in December:
A similar thing happened at CNN.com a few years back, except that was an example of mass obiticide.
Death by media
The Dec. 31 list of notable people who died 2008 contained incorrect information about musician Dave Clark. The Dave Clark Five’s singer Mike Smith died in February. Clark is alive.
Reverse the numbers, make an actress happy
Cloris Leachman: An article about Cloris Leachman in Thursday’s Calendar section said the actress had competed in the Miss America Pageant in 1964. She was a contestant in 1946.
Fuzzy numbers etc.
A STORY in The Advertiser yesterday stated that 9030 interstate visitors spent a night holidaying in SA in 2007, with that figure forecast to drop to 8699 this year.
The correct figures were 9,030,000 total visitor nights spent in SA in 2007, to drop to 8,699,000 during 2009.
Lessons in nationality
Apologies to Ireland, part three: For the third time in a month, we have included the Republic of Ireland in Britain, this time in Review. “The places where the story of Britain is told” (last week) included Dublin and Cork and the Irish writers Roddy Doyle and Colm Tóibín in a survey of British literature.
Sorry… again. Link
Just in case you got the wrong idea…
The headline on a front-page article on Friday, on the role in the housing bubble and consumption binge in the United States played by investment from China, could have been misunderstood. The article described how the United States has been tolerating a huge trade deficit with China while Chinese authorities have invested huge sums in American government securities from savings partly created by the inflow of American dollars. “Dollar Shift: Chinese Pockets Filled as Americans’ Emptied” meant to describe the complications of that situation; it did not mean to imply that China has profited from the weakness of the American economy. Link
Interestingly, the above was labeled a “postscript,” not a correction.
A year of The Stranger’s regrets
Seattle weekly The Stranger makes an annual, hilarious accounting of its mistakes. Some entries are corrections for factual errors; others are regrets of an entirely different nature. Some samples:
The February 14 issue of The Stranger referred to Seattle resident Tae Rhee as a “woman.” In fact, Tae Rhee is a man. We regret the error.
On a related note, Tae Rhee was mentioned in the February 14 issue because he had nominated Jarred Grimes to be Seattle’s Sexiest Drummer for our annual Valentine’s Day cavalcade of sexiness. Unfortunately, the printed text read “Seattle’s Sexist Drummer.” We regret the error.
Dominic Holden, news reporter at The Stranger, regrets that in an attempt to spell out the word “brassiere” in a Slog post, he mistakenly spelled it “brazier,” which actually means “barbecue.” He further regrets that upon trying to amend his error, he spelled it “brassier,” which, if anything, means “more brassy.” Holden recognizes that, as a homosexual, he should avoid subjects related to women’s undergarments.
Charles Mudede, associate editor of The Stranger, regrets that his pretty daughter did not get a chance to be a gore-and-blood-splattered Michelle Obama in The Stranger’s Halloween issue because the idea was scrapped at the last minute due to the strenuous objections of just about everyone on the third floor.
The Stranger news staff regrets that neighborhood meetings do not have open bars.
Managing editor Bethany Jean Clement regrets saying “The copy editors have been doing a really good job lately” last Wednesday, an instant jinx that caused last Thursday’s cover to read “P. 65″ under “MERYL STREEP’S FACE/AN APPRECIATION/BY CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE” when that piece was on page 67.
The Stranger regrets hipsters’ tight, tight pants and hopes enough blood is making it to their feet.
Stranger staffer Lindy West regrets that after her review of the lunch buffet at Lake City’s Déjà Vu Showgirls, they shut down the lunch buffet forever, causing angry strip-club lunch enthusiasts on the 206proof.com message board to declare Lindy West to be “toast” and then to post a picture of toast. However, Lindy West does not regret writing the phrase “thousands of beautiful tater tots and three ugly ones.”
Dan Savage, author of the internationally syndicated sex-advice column Savage Love and host of the Savage Lovecast, regrets using the phrase “that’s retarded” in his column and on his podcast when what he meant was “that’s stupid.” Using “retard” in that manner is, like, so totally gay.
The writers and editors of The Stranger regret that the only pens available in the office are shitty ballpoint ones. It is a further affront to have to ask the office manager for each and every one of those shitty pens.
Read them all here.
Slightly different
An article last Sunday rendered a comment by Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, incorrectly. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” she said, “We are targeting Hamas, we are not looking for civilians to kill,” and then added “More than that, during this military operation, we are trying to avoid any kind of civilian casualties.” She did not say, “We are targeting Hamas, we are not looking for civilians to kill more than that.” Link
Apology
Boris Johnson did not “tip off” Damian Green, the Tory immigration spokesman, before he was arrested, as we wrongly suggested (Magazine, December 28). Mr Johnson only spoke to Mr Green, who is a friend and colleague, after his arrest. We apologise to Mr Johnson.
Corrections and accuracy wishes for the new year
This is the final Regret post for 2008. Regular posting will resume on January 5, 2009.
I’m usually so busy tracking corrections and errors that I don’t get a chance to write about the best ways to prevent and correct mistakes. With 2008 coming to a close, it’s a perfect time to list some of the things news organizations should be doing with online corrections, and share some of my ideas for new prevention and correction practices.
I decided to write these suggestions in the form of “Wouldn’t it be great if…” because if any or all of them take flight this year, it would be a great thing for corrections and accuracy. Here are my accuracy and corrections wishes for the new year:
Wouldn’t it be great if every news website had a regularly-updated online corrections page linked from their homepage?
Wouldn’t it be great if all news sites placed corrections within the offending article?
Wouldn’t it be great if news sites stopped scrubbing away errors?
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a way to automatically notify a website that a correction was made to an article they’ve linked to? I’ve taken to calling this the “Reverse Trackback” or a “Correctforward.” A Trackback is a way of automatically notifying a site that its content (usually a blog post) has been linked by someone else. We need to reverse this and create a system that spiders out a correction notice to news sites or blogs that previously cited the original, incorrect article. The notification could, for example, take the form of a comment on the related post. (”This is an automated message to inform you that the Regret the Error post you linked to has been corrected. Please read the corrected post here [link].”) This would go a long way to helping push corrections out to the public, which is what needs to be done on the web. We shouldn’t expect people to go hunting for corrections.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a “Notify Me If This Article Is Corrected” button alongside all of the “Print” and “Share” buttons that appear on most online articles? The reader could simply enter their email address and receive an email if a correction was issued for the story. It’s great that more and more news sites are placing corrections within the story, but how many people go back and reread an article? A lot of readers are not seeing the corrections. As I noted above, we need to find a way to push corrections out to readers. This tool would enable readers to receive corrections for articles that they consider particularly important or useful.
Wouldn’t it be great if all news sites had an online form like the Chicago Tribune’s to help people report errors?
Wouldn’t it be great if readers could receive credit for spotting errors? For example, if a site asks people to create a user account, then that person’s profile could list “Number of corrections submitted” and “Number of corrections accepted.” It could also include “Letters to the editor published,” and a listing of that person’s comments on the site. Maybe the best error-spotter earns a prize at the end of the month or year? This system would encourage people to participate and contribute — and it would help decrease the number of uncorrected errors, which are a big problem.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could create standardized accuracy checklists for reporters, editors and other newsroom staff? These checklists (examples: 1,2,3) would help people take a systematic approach to verifying articles before they’re published. To see how checklists are helping improve intensive care in hospitals, read this great New Yorker article.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a central place where people from different newsrooms could share tips for achieving accuracy? There’s a lot of knowledge out there, but it’s scattered among different organizations. A wiki for accuracy tips would help share knowledge and go a long way towards creating best practices.
What else would be great to see happen this year? Add your thoughts in the comments.
Attack of the spellchecker
Please note the important 4th writethru to SCOC-Cromwell which corrects the name of the former Supreme Court judge to Michel Bastarache, which had been changed to Bastard by a spellcheck error.
Thanks, Carolyn!
Ostracized by quote, not school
A story yesterday about members of Temple Beth El in Patchogue hosting Hispanic residents mischaracterized statements by Jeremy Pomerantz, a senior at Sayville High School. He participated in the event because he said he believes in community outreach. He said he does not feel ostracized as one of the few Jewish students at his school. Link
Here’s the original paragraph:
Nearby, Jeremy Pomerantz, a senior at Sayville High School who speaks Spanish, chatted with several families from Ecuador. He said he could empathize with their feeling of being ostracized because he is one of only a few Sayville High students who is Jewish.
NY Times publishes fake letter
A New York Times Editors’ Note (Via Romenesko):
Earlier this morning, we posted a letter that carried the name of Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, sharply criticizing Caroline Kennedy.
This letter was a fake. It should not have been published.
Doing so violated both our standards and our procedures in publishing signed letters from our readers.
We have already expressed our regrets to Mr. Delanoë’s office and we are now doing the same to you, our readers.
This letter, like most Letters to the Editor these days, arrived by email. It is Times procedure to verify the authenticity of every letter. In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the email and did not hear back. At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoë’s office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us.
We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.
We are reviewing our procedures for verifying letters to avoid such an incident in the future. Link