Regret the Error

A note of Regret: relaunch underway

Regret is about to undergo a major facelift and relaunch that will be completed by Monday the 29th. It's possible that you will be unable to access the site for a short period later today or over the weekend. Don't be alarmed; our army of IT monkeys are hard at work and everything will look smashing come Monday morning, if not even sooner.

We will also be launching an accompanying book website. Among other things, it will be the home of all corrections to that work.

See you anew on Monday.

Plagiarism and fabrication at the News Leader

Blair J. Parker, a sports reporter at the News Leader in Staunton, Virginia, was fired on Tuesday after an internal investigation revealed she "fabricated at least four stories and plagiarized from other stories on the Internet."
Parker was suspended last week after a story she wrote was revealed to have been made up of parts plagiarized from at least five different sources. One top of that, "Only one source was clearly real and correctly identified, and he disputes the quote attributed to him."
This could be a record for the number of plagiarized sources contained in one article. A column from the paper's executive editor describes how that then led to a larger investigation:

Following that first revelation, we began to dig deeper into Parker’s work. On Friday, Oct. 19, we realized that a community profile she had written — and which had been prepared for Friday publication before Thursday’s revelations — also was suspect. The story profiled Andrew Koch and identified him as a University of Virginia student and a Cavaliers fan. A photo was included. At 8:52 a.m. someone who identified himself as Andrew Koch came onto our newspaper forums and said that while his name and photo were used on the profile, he was not a University of Virginia student, a Cavalier’s fan and he had not vacationed in Cancun. He said that despite the use of his name and image, he was not the subject of the article. He said the photo was identical to one on a website at James Madison University, where he works. We could not locate a student Andrew Koch at U.Va. and on Saturday (Oct. 20) ran a correction stating that the profile was false.

The editor then details four more incidents of plagiarism and/or fabrication. Parker has owned up to her transgressions. "When asked about the problems in the deer-hunting story on Thursday, Parker told Publisher Roger Watson and me that she took full responsibility for her actions," writes David Frtiz. "On Tuesday, she admitted the other fabrications and offered no explanation."
He concludes with an apology:

So I apologize to you for the actions of our reporter. Our goal from the first sign of wrongdoing was to quickly and transparently understand the scope of the problem and to take firm action. It’s our responsibility to our readers. I also apologize that we didn’t figure it out sooner.

Here are two corrections published by the paper before it fired Parker:

The reporting for a local profile on Page A4 Friday cannot be verified. The photo that ran with it is of an Andrew Koch, but that Andrew Koch was not interviewed for the piece. Because of this, we retract the entire profile. The work of Blair J. Parker, the reporter who prepared the profile, is under review by The News Leader. That section of A4 was prepared early on Thursday, before questions were raised about her other work. More information will be released once the investigation is complete. Link

A Thursday B1 story about the fall deer and trout seasons by Blair J. Parker was plagiarized from several sources.
We have confirmed that large portions of the story came from other sources and that facts within the story were incorrect, thus we retract the article in its entirety.
We are beginning a thorough investigation of Parker's work since she joined the newspaper in 2006.
Plagiarism and knowingly publishing inaccurate information violates The News Leader's Principles of Ethical Conduct, a commitment to you that we take very seriously. We will report our findings once the investigation is complete
— David Fritz, executive editor Link

History lesson

The continuation of an article about NASA seeking a new space race on Page A14 Tuesday reported incorrectly the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The year was 1969.

Obama? Osama? Ocrapa, redux

Clarification: A story in yesterday's Nation pages about Mitt Romney mixing up Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden said that Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes had previously used the similarity between the names Osama and Obama to mock the senator. Fox News says Ailes was making a joke aimed at President Bush, not Obama, when Ailes said in a speech to broadcast executives in March: "And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, `Why can't we catch this guy?"' Link

More here.

Self-correction

According to a survey by SkillSoft, 30 per cent of employees do not think their boss is qualified for the job. Incorrect information appeared in Monday's paper. Link

This is a correction to a column written by the editor of this site for the Globe And Mail. The story originally and incorrectly stated that only 30 percent of employees thought their boss was qualified. And yes, the correction should have included the original error and article title. The above is the corrections style for the paper. We'll see if we can help change it to be more descriptive.

WSJ moves a decimal and redefines the concept of a union job

Jimmy Warren, financial treasurer of a United Steelworkers local, makes $8,252.62, according to a union spokesman and an LM-2 filing with the Department of Labor. The amount is overstated elsewhere on the Department of Labor Web site and was misreported in this editorial. Link

This is another case of a correction leaving out pertinent information. The paper had originally reported that Warren's salary was $825,262. Yes, it was a decimal error, and the mistake was also on the Department of Labour's website. But the correct information was available elsewhere online and the error resulted in a huge difference that made Warren look like a crook. Did the WSJ really believe that he was being paid over $800,000 to be the treasurer of a union local? Or did it just fit the tone of the editorial? The correction should have noted the original mistake.

Not missing a chance to hit back at a negative editorial, the USW put out a press release to object to the error and call for a correction, though the release does not acknowledge that the error also appeared on the Dept. of Labor website. So perhaps both the correction and release were missing some pertinent information. The release:

News From USW: The United Steelworkers (USW) today demanded an apology from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on behalf its 1.2 million active and retired members in the United States and Canada after the newspaper grossly over-reported a USW local union officer's compensation in a vitriol-and-error-filled Monday editorial, ostensibly aimed at congressional Democrats who voted last week to trim $2 million from the Office of Labor Management Standards' projected nearly $50 million 2008 budget.

In a particularly mean-spirited passage designed to illustrate how union leaders are not members of the working class, the newspaper singles out USW member Jimmy Warren, a democratically elected local union financial officer from Arkansas, as receiving $825,262 in payments from his union. In reality, the financial report for his local, which is available to the public online for free, clearly shows that he was compensated $8,252.62, an over $817,000 difference.

The Steelworkers said that even though the newspaper printed a completely inadequate, out-of-context correction after the USW lodged its complaint, the troubling fact remains that one of the world's most widely read financial journals has displayed irresponsibility with regard to fact-checking that insults its readers, to say nothing of the paper's obvious contempt for working men and women.

Fun with photos

In Thursday’s edition we erroneously ran a photo of former Metro Councilman David Briley accompanying a story on his brother, state Rep. Rob Briley. The City Paper regrets the error.

Seems like an understandable error, except that Rep. Briley had recently "checked into rehab after being charged with two felonies, a DUI and several additional misdemeanors after two incidents in DeKalb and Wilson counties in early September," according to the Nashville City Paper. So perhaps his brother wasn't so pleased with the mixup after all. The online version of the article does not carry the correction, though it does have the correct photo. The e-paper version shows the correction here.

Big hat tip to Kleinheider at VolunteerVoters.com for spotting the error and writing about it.

No parking (lots)

Contrary to two articles published on Oct. 20 and 22, Impark (Imperial Parking Canada Corporation) did not operate the parking lots near the Cirque du Soleil performances at Commissioner and Cherry Sts., and does not have parking lots in that area. The Star regrets the error and apologizes to Impark. Link

Background to this here and here. Thanks, Tyler!

Much better

A STORY in The Australian yesterday (''Grandmother tells of desperate attempt to save Dean'', page 1) incorrectly stated that Dean Shillingsworth's father was jailed for bashing the former partner of the boy's mother. In fact, Paul Shillingsworth was jailed for bashing the former partner of his own mother. The error was made in the production process.

ABC News investigation clears Aexis Debat of fabrication, cites "four details... that we couldn't confirm"

Background here and here.
TVNewser acquired the memo that ABC News head David Westin sent to staff about the findings of the internal investigation into the work of Alexis Debat, a former consultant with the network. Some relevant excerpts:

...This review was extremely sensitive, as it required going back to confidential sources in this country and abroad. It also involved traveling to Pakistan to confirm first-hand the circumstances of Mr. Debat's work there.
Early in our review, we learned that there were other interviews Mr. Debat had published in France that the subjects denied had been conducted. We reported this story immediately on ABC News.com.
We have now completed our review. After going through all of the stories Mr. Debat worked on for ABC News, we found no instances of false reporting. Mr. Debat was not the sole source for anything ABC News reported. Moreover, we confirmed with Mr. Debat's confidential sources that they had given him the information as he'd claimed in contributing to our reports. We also confirmed that Mr. Debat traveled to the locations in Pakistan as he had claimed and talked with the sources he had identified.
Our review did uncover four details of Mr. Debat's reporting that we couldn't confirm. In one case, he mis-identified which branch of U.S. Special forces had engaged in a particular operation, although we did confirm the other facts surrounding the operation. We also found disagreements over the location for two meetings reported on by Mr. Debat, although, again, we could confirm the other facts surrounding the meetings. And, one of the people whom Mr. Debat identified as attending a meeting would neither confirm nor deny that he/she was a direct participant. None of these discrepancies would rise to the level of a formal, on-air retraction because none of them was material to the substance of our report.

So none of the stories he worked on need to be retracted, but does this mean ABC News won't inform viewers of its findings? Why not explain the detailed investigation that took place?

Also, an AP story about the memo that ABC has on its website seems to have a misleading headline. (This appears to be AP's doing, not ABC's; see here.) It reads, "ABC: No Errors Tied to 'Fake' Consultant." But Westin's memo clearly states that there are details and facts that can't be confirmed. Is that really the same as "no errors"? Also, the AP story does not detail the discrepancies outlined in the memo. Why not?

ABC News is also instituting changes to its practices:

There are three changes we are making in our internal practices based on what we've learned from this case.
Starting immediately, we will include both our News Practices team and the corporate Human Resources Department in the hiring of all consultants, reviewing in particular claims of prior employment and educational history. We will also undertake a review of current consultants where appropriate.
When we hire a consultant, we will make a determination of exactly how that person will be identified on all programs and platforms.
News Practices will be alerted each time that we include a consultant in our reporting to ensure that the consultant is being used and identified properly.
We undertake extensive efforts in all of our reporting — and particularly in our investigative reporting — to check and double-check information we are given so that no one source can compromise the truth of what we present to our audiences. Based on our review, our overall systems and procedures worked in the case of Mr. Debat. Nothing in our review, of course, condones the instances of resume enhancement or fake interviews that Mr. Debat published elsewhere.

All politicians are alike

A pullout of statements made during Sunday night's Republican debate misattributed a comment on health care to Ron Paul. It was Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who said: "When all the old hippies find out they can get free drugs, just wait to see how much that is going to cost us." Link

All workouts are alike

An article about men doing yoga was illustrated with a photograph of a T'ai Chi class (He was invading my sanctuary, page 18, G2, October 16). Link

Wait, Wait + Stephen Colbert + Regret the Error

Equals a marriage made in heaven as far as we're concerned.
On Sunday's edition of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!, the wonderful news quiz show that airs on NPR, Stephen Colbert was brought on to do the Not My Job segment. To our joy, the program decided to quiz him about media errors, and it used the oh-so-soon-to-be-released Regret the Error book as its source. Colbert managed to get two out of three questions correct, while also providing some of his usual brand of entertainment in the interview prior to the quiz. To listen, go here and then click on the "Not My Job: Stephen Colbert" link on the page.
Trust us , you'll enjoy it. Perhaps it will even inspire you to purchase the book. We're just sayin'...

Lose a word, lose the meaning

Due to a technical error The Moscow News ran a typo in the article titled "Bringing Expats to Russia - Without the Pain"(Issue #40, page 17). The sentence in the seventh paragraph ending with "...though actually I find that Moscow is not clean." should have read "...though actually I find that Moscow is clean."
We regret the error and extend our apology to Tim Carty.

Less exciting

"Canvas": The review of "Canvas" in Friday's Calendar section said the film was rated R for drug use, strong sexuality, violence and pervasive language. That rating was for a 1992 film with the same title. The "Canvas" that opened Friday is rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements. Link

Apology

In 'Turncoat Terry' (Sport, 23 Sept), we did not intend to adopt any allegation that John Terry was a 'turncoat' or 'disloyal' or that he had played any intentional part in the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea Football Club. We accept his assurance that he did not. We also accept that our headline might have caused confusion and apologise if any contrary impression was given. Link

A nickname to be proud of

X-rated movie director Inkyo Volt Hwang's nickname was Wanker Wang. An article on page A1 Saturday misspelled the nickname. Link

Reuters turns Britney in(to a police station)

An amusing Reuters error catalogued by the always entertaining The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (click to enlarge):

So who was the unlucky misidentified person?

A brief Tuesday in the City & State section about a Chapel Hill police officer being bitten named the wrong person as the one charged with the assault. Partia Marie Allen, 21, of Durham, was charged with assault on a government official, malicious conduct by a prisoner and drunk and disruptive behavior at Spice Street restaurant early Sunday morning. Link

A man (not) named Sue

An obituary Tuesday on Nolan Herndon, who participated in World War II's Doolittle Raid, gave his nickname as Sue. In fact, he was known only as Nolan Anderson Herndon. Link

Herndon obituary: The obituary of Doolittle Raider Nolan A. Herndon in Monday's California section gave his nickname as Sue. In fact, he was known only as Nolan Anderson Herndon. In addition, his sons were listed as Nolan A. "Sue" Herndon Jr. and James M. "Debbie" Herndon. Neither son goes by those nicknames; Sue and Debbie are the names of their wives. Link

Bad for business

On 24 August 2007, "The Australian Financial Review" (AFR) referred to the public relations (PR) firm Jackson Wells Morris (JWM). Regarding the page 17 article, the AFR accepts that JWM are not "spin doctors" for the Liberal Party of Australia. In fact, it has been a long-standing company policy not to work for any political party. The AFR also accepts that JWM provided a client report with an unbiased and honest view of industry opinion. To this effect, JWM did not prepare a report with the aim of convincing the Australian Labor Party to retain the building industry regulator, the Australian Building & Construction Commission...

A tale of error and correction that began in 1994

An article on July 5, 1994, about James B. Blair, then the general counsel for the Tyson Foods company and a longtime confidant and personal emissary for Bill and Hillary Clinton, misstated benefits that Tyson received from the state of Arkansas while Mr. Clinton was governor. Although the company did benefit from at least $7 million in state tax credits, it did not receive $9 million in loans from the state. (The error appeared in three other articles and in an editorial in 1994, all of which were corrected on April 20 of that year. The correction should have been appended then in The Times’s archives to those articles: one on the front page on March 18 about Mrs. Clinton’s commodity trades in the late 1970s; a March 19 article about President Clinton’s defense of Mrs. Clinton’s investments; a March 30 article about the White House’s disclosure of the amount Mrs. Clinton invested in commodities trades, and a March 31 editorial.)
The error in the July 5 article was discovered during research after the watchdog group Media Matters twice pointed out that the 1994 correction had not been appended to the other articles. Link

Fib one for the Gipper

In an Oct. 10 story about the exhumation of George Gipp's remains for a DNA test, The Associated Press, relying on information from Gipp's hometown, erroneously reported he scored 83 touchdowns for Notre Dame. Gipp scored 21 touchdowns and passed for eight others, according to the university's sports information office. Link

Thanks, Jim!

Wilde-ly misquoted

Oscar Wilde did not say, on his deathbed, "Either those curtains go or I do." He is reported to have said something along the lines of "this wallpaper will be the death of me - one of us will have to go", but not on his deathbed (Genius declared: Wilde tops the wit list, page 11, October 15). Link

Deja vu

The wrong versions of articles by two Spectator columnists appeared in Saturday's paper. Columns by Cecelia Carter Smith and Harold Howe were repeats of earlier columns. The proper columns appear in today's Sports section. The Spectator apologizes for the errors and any confusion they may have caused. Link

Apology

IN our article "Drugs suicide of driver who killed girl of 3" we said that Ryan Frayne had "fled Britain after his van killed a little girl".
We have been asked by the family to point out that Ryan had not "fled" the country and it is incorrect to call his death a suicide.
Until the coroner reaches a verdict, the facts of his death remain under investigation.

Resurrection

From the Canning Times of Perth, Australia:

LAST week s story Perth played part in space history incorrectly referred to a WA Astronomical Society founding member as the late Ron Ashe.
Mr Ashe is, in fact, alive.
The Canning Times apologises for any confusion or distress caused by the error.

Apology

WE wish to apologise to Carol Vorderman and her family for the misleading headline VORDERCON which we ran in Monday's paper.
The story was about a newsagent in Prestatyn who was prepared to lie for the programme 'Who Do You Think You Are?', which Carol took part in and which has promoted the town of Prestatyn hugely. As we made clear in the article we accept that Carol knew nothing of the newsagent's deceit. We're sorry Carol.

Lose a word, change the meaning

An Oct. 13 Page One article about an allegation that the government withdrew a $100 million contract after Qwest refused to participate in a National Security Agency program incorrectly quoted Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He did not say: "It's inappropriate for the government to be awarding a contract conditioned upon an agreement to an illegal program. That truly is what's going on here." What he said was: "It's inappropriate for the government to be awarding a contract conditioned upon an agreement to an illegal program, if that's truly what's going on here." Link

Thanks, Jay!

Okay, okay...what?!

A photograph accompanying a story about Teen Challenge in Saturday's Intelligencer Journal incorrectly identified the subject, who is the Rev. James Santiago.
The story included an incorrect identification of Santiago's wife, Pam. Also, Santiago was addicted to crack cocaine for 12 years.

Yet another example of how some corrections raise more questions than they answer.

The secret revealed

George Bush was not the benefactor of the US supreme court ruling that gave him victory in the 2000 election, but the beneficiary (Al Gore wins the Nobel peace prize. And this time, no one can take it away from him, page 3, October 13). Link

Fun with photos

Editor's Note: In our print edition, several captions for the photographs accompanying this report were inadvertantly transposed. Martin Kramer's photograph is identified as Norman Podhoretz; Daniel Pipes's photograph is identified as Kramer; Peter Berkowitz's photograph is identified as Pipes; Nile Gardiner's photograph is identified as Berkowitz's and Podhoretz's photograph is identified as Gardiner's. NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.

Daniel Pipes has the original image up on his website. He notes that, "There are six pictures in all on the page and five of the six captions are wrong; only that of Robert Kasten is correct. Aggregating so many errors at once takes real talent – but count on Newsweek."
He's not a fan.

Thanks, Jim!

Put down that chestnut

An anecdote about eating chestnuts collected in the city was included in The Ingredient Column last week. According to The Canadian Chestnut Council, Only American, Chinese, Japanese And European Chestnuts are edible. Horse Chestnuts, commonly found in Toronto, are not. Link

Cheeky correction

Correction In "A Sunny Interval" (Home, Sept 30), we stated, incorrectly, that Sian Lloyd last year broke off her engagement to the Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik after he began dating one of the Cheeky Girls. We wish to make it clear this was inaccurate. Sian Lloyd terminated her relationship with Opik prior to his relationship with his new partner, Gabriela Irimia, and this therefore had no bearing on the end of the engagement. We regret any distress this error may have caused.

History repeating

The Canadian Press erroneously reported Wednesday that a waitress from Newcastle, Ont., picked all 13 NFL winners on Thanksgiving weekend, becoming the biggest Pro-Line winner in Ontario history — with a prize of $444,186. In fact, the story was old and moved in error. The woman’s lucky weekend was last year.

The correction was truncated by The Record of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario to read:

The Canadian Press erroneously reported in a story in the Sports section Thursday that a waitress from Newcastle, Ont., picked all 13 NFL winners on Thanksgiving weekend, becoming the biggest Pro-Line winner in Ontario history. Link

 

Thanks, Jim!

Resurrection

A story taken from the Associated Press wire service headlined 'Race row mayor hits back at protest song' (World, last week) was wrong to state that a white student in Jena, Louisiana, had been 'beaten to death last December'. The student, Justin Barker, was beaten, but not fatally. Apologies. Link

Ancestry denied

There was an interesting recent exchange of letters in the Townsville Bulletin of Australia. It started with this:

AS you can see from my address, I live on the other side of the world; Trinidad, home of Brian Lara. I need some assistance in getting some information on my father, Walter Sugden (deceased), former geologist and lecturer in the James Cook University. I was born on July 18, 1946 to Walter and Mable Sugden. Walter and Mable were married in 1946, he was employed at that time in Trinadad. He was originally from England. They divorced after two to three years and he left Trinidad. I started looking for him some years ago. I eventually found out that he migrated to Australia, and eventually died and was buried in Townsville. I also found out that I have a half brother and sister. My brother's name is Hugh Sugden of Sugden Photographics. I contacted Hugh. I would like to contact anyone knowing Walter who might be able to assist me in bridging this information gap. I have no desire to profit in any way from use of this information, my children just want to know more about their grandfather. Thanking you for any assistance in this matter.
Clive Sugden,
Trinidad, West Indies

And was followed by:

ON October 4 a letter appeared in the Townsville Bulletin written by Clive Sugden from Trinidad. In the letter Mr Sugden said he was seeking information about the Sugden family in Townsville. We would like to distance ourselves from the claims of family history made in that letter.
Hugh Sugden,
Sugden Photographics.

 

Newspaper turns band gay

In Saturday's story about the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the sexual orientation of the Whoreshoes was misstated. Only vocalist Lala Hulse is a lesbian. The other members of the all-female band are heterosexual.

Resurrection (but for how long?)

In yesterday's edition we wrongly reported that a member of Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council, Louis Richeme, had been murdered. Richeme is alive and accuses other members of the PEC of embezzlement and of "trying to have him murdered".

Bad for business

Hasbro, the US toymaker, has not been involved in any of the recent US recalls of Chinese-made toys linked to lead-based paint concerns, as wrongly stated in the FT on October 11. Link

NY Times corrections database goes live

The good folks at Check Your Facts recently published an item stating that the roll out of the New York Times internal corrections database is complete. The paper is now entering all of its corrections into a central database, much like how the Boston Globe, Rocky Mountain News and a few other US papers have been doing. Reports CYF:

Check Your Facts has learned that the New York Times may finally be making good on one of the recommendations laid out in a 2005 report titled “Preserving Our Readers’ Trust.”
Fresh from a "training class," a well-placed source at the Times says a computerized tracking system for corrections is being implemented.
Correspondent Adam Klasfeld learned of the new system through correspondence with a New York Times editor (Check Your Facts is withholding the editor's name in order to maintain open communications on the matter). The NYT editor said that no tracking system as described in the report currently exists but that a “training class” was held for a new system. “We are just implementing it,” wrote the editor. “We are beginning with corrections on October 1.”

We reported on the roll out of the system in December of last year after speaking with Greg Brock, the paper's corrections editor:

A final note from the Times: Brock says the paper does have a corrections database that is being used by some departments. Each department can see its own corrections tally, and Brock has access to the total data. He says they are working to roll it out within all departments. This database was one of the recommendations of the Siegal Committee. It's good to see the paper following up on this project. We hope it's fully operational ASAP.

In an email response this week, Brock said the system was fully operational as of September 17. "So it is in place, though we are continuing to train editors who will use it only occasionally because they work on sections or special issues of magazines that publish just a few times a year," he wrote. "The main news desks are already using it."

We asked if the paper plans to release its tallies the way some other paper do (see these links: 1, 2, 3, 4), and Brock said the issue hadn't yet been raised, but that he would look into it. As of now, he is distributing reports to the relevant editors on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis in order to show them the most common types of errors in their sections. It's good to hear the data is being put to use to help fuel preventative initiatives.