Regret the Error

Steve Guttenberg lives!

Either cops in Utah are desperate for new recruits, or they're filming a new Police Academy sequel. (We hope it's the latter.) Either way, enjoy this correction from The Salt Lake Tribune:

The police academy cadet who shot herself in the leg Thursday was Janet Vlaanderen. A story in Saturday's Tribune misspelled her name.

The rumor's true: all journalists look alike

The Guardian got a couple of CBS elder statesmen mixed up in an article about Dan Rather:

Contrary to what we said in our profile of Dan Rather, page 15, November 26, Mr Rather was not portrayed by Christopher Plummer in Michael Mann's film The Insider. Plummer played another 60 Minutes presenter, Mike Wallace.

Somebody at this paper hates fruit

The Ottawa Citizen runs a correction that shows the dangers of photo cropping (and junk food):

Due to an editing error, the photograph which accompanied a letter by Garry S. Fischl ("Students should snack less, exercise more," Nov. 26) left the incorrect impression about his views on nutritious snacks for his children in school.
The original photograph of Mr. Fischl and his sons showed him holding a bowl of fruit. In laying out the page, the fruit was cropped out of the picture, and only the bags of potato chips and candy being held by his sons were shown.
As a result of this error, Mr. Fischl has informed the Citizen that the picture as published "is not consistent with what my children consume for school snacks."

Ombudsmen round-up

• Paul Moore of The Baltimore Sun writes about a directive from the Maryland governor's press office banning all state officials from talking with two Sun journalists.
• Christine Chinlund of The Boston Globe writes about writing headlines.
• Jeffrey Dvorkin of NPR dips into the reader mail bag and comes up with some interesting letters.
• Daniel Okrent writes about arts listings in The Times and an organized effort in protest of the new "The Guide" section.
• Michael Arrieta-Walden of The Oregonian asks whether newspapers should publish photos of "illegal activity" or  "life-threatening actions"?
• Connie Coyne of The Salt Lake Tribune writes about how stories are chosen for the front page and invites the public to come sit in on the process.
• Don Sellar of The Toronto Star tries to correct an urban myth that grew out of information in a Star story.
• Michael Getler of The Washington Post writes about the difference between the online and print content of the paper, and an online cartoon that sent readers into a tizzy.

Another family misunderstanding

Report On Business Magazine is running a correction (not printed in its latest issue) that shows a lack of understanding when it comes to the history of its corporate sister. The error occurred when the magazine was describing the history of the CTV television network. Both ROB Magazine, which is published by The Globe and Mail, and CTV are part of the Bell Globemedia empire. Here's the correction:

The story "Local moguls sign off" in the December issue of Report on Business Magazine, included in most copies of today's Globe and Mail, incorrectly summarizes the history of the CTV network.
Members of the Bassett family sold their interest in Baton Broadcasting in 1984, although Douglas Bassett stayed on as CEO. Baton's successful efforts to gain control of the CTV network were directed initially by the Bassett family, and then by Ivan Fecan when he became Baton CEO in the mid-1990s.
Mr. Fecan engineered a complex series of buyouts of affiliated CTV stations and the acquisition of specialty holdings and new licences, transforming CTV from a 40-hours-per-week co-operative into a 24-hours-per-day national network. He is now CEO and president of Bell Globemedia, which owns CTV and The Globe and Mail.

We Crunked: Regret corrections

Mistakes do indeed happen, and here are our flubs from this week. Thanks go out to Richard, Laughlin, Joseph, Patrick, Rod, Alexandra and Antonia for picking up the slack.

The Crunks:

• Our November 19 edition of  "We Crunked" misspelled the word "misspelled." It has been corrected. We regret the error, but love the irony. Some readers also pointed out that "samaritan" should be capitalized. Unfortunately, our blog software wouldn't let us capitalize it in the headline so we had to leave it cap-less throughout.
• Our November 19 post, "The skinny on Brokaw," contained an error in this sentence: "How does one go about getting a correction on skinny dipping?" The word "dipping" was misspelled as "sipping." It has been corrected. We regret the error.
• Our November 19 post, "Another drunken error," contained an error in this sentence: "...then a bunch of prosecutors are accused of abusing an open bar (it was a cash bar)." It originally read, "...an open a bar." The "a" has been deleted. We regret the error.
• Our November 22 post, "Clear Channel blasts Rolling Stone," contained an error in this sentence: "One would have expected them to at least print an edited version with a response from the writer."  The word "from" was originally published as "form." It has been corrected. We regret the error.
• Our November 24 post, "PR not immune to mistakes," contained an error in this sentence: "We give newspapers a lot of grief for their errors, but there is a whole other stream of daily corrections that we haven't yet given a working over: press releases." The word "their" was originally spelled "theirs." It has been corrected. We regret the error.
• Our November 25 post, "Another National Post columnist in hot water; Free Press columnist resigns," contained a significant error. The original post repeated the untrue and scurrilous allegation made by The National Post's Gillian Cosgrove. It's untrue and hurtful and shouldn't have been repeated. We regret the error.

Zero tolerance

Journalists are notoriously bad at math, and the volume of numerical and mathematical errors we see on correction pages is a frequent reminder of this unfortunate fact. Don't believe us? Well check out this correction in which The Toronto Star is forced to go back to zero:

Any number divided by zero is undefined, not zero as reported last Sunday in a Starship article about the number zero. Zero divided by zero is also undefined. The Star regrets the error.

Another National Post columnist in hot water; Free Press columnist resigns

Canada's National Post, which recently fired a columnist over charges of plagiarism, published an apology yesterday after a columnist insinuated something rather nasty about Canada's Governor General. UPDATE: We previously published the nature of the allegation, but were rightly smacked upside the head by Antonia Zerbisias at The Toronto Star. It's untrue and hurtful and shouldn't have been repeated. We regret the error. Here's the Post's apology from Wednesday's A2:

"In the first item in a column by Gillian Cosgrove in this paper on Monday, November 22, 2004, a number of fundamental errors and intentional misrepresentations appeared. The editors regret this and apologize to all concerned."

The CBC has a good story that provides all the background this ambiguous apology doesn't. Antonia Zerbisias at The Toronto Star also chimes in and speaks with the GG's lawyer who says that, "The matter is ended." Honestly, we think they're letting the Post get off easy with this one. Why is The Post so unwilling to explain what these "fundamental errors and intentional misrepresentations" were? And why, according to the CBC, have they expunged the column in question from their database without explanation? (The link to the column on their site says, "This story is no longer available," though Zerbisias poins out that the story is still in the Factiva database.) Let's see if the Editor-In-Chief of The Post, Matthew Fraser, grants interviews about this incident (he didn't over the Nickson affair and didn't respond to the CBC yesterday).

It seems to us that a column containing  "fundamental errors and intentional misrepresentations" (emphasis ours) deserves much more of an explanation. What were the fundamental errors? What was the intent? This apology does not cut the mustard and we hope more detail is on the way from The Post.

--

In an unrelated story, Scott Taylor, a long time sports columnist at The Winnipeg Free Press, resigned after the paper ran front page apology for what it said was plagiarism on his part. The Globe And Mail is carrying a Canadian Press story about the issue. Taylor takes issue with the paper's reaction. An excerpt:

Taylor said he was shocked the newspaper made the dispute public with the published apology.

"This came as a real kick in the gut," he said in an interview.

"I was not fired with cause, nor was I forced out. I resigned because it was clear I was getting no support from the Winnipeg Free Press. Why they decided to do what they did [Wednesday] is stunning to me."

The editor of the Free Press said the apology followed a "painstaking investigation."

Taylor, who spent 23 years at the paper, is also a regular on The Score television network and has made numerous appearances on CBC Newsworld.

The article at the centre of the controversy also allegedly contained a quote that first appeared in an NFL news release. However, Free Press editor Nicholas Hirst told readers the quote was slightly altered and attributed to Kansas City Chiefs' head coach Dick Vermeil, while the NFL release attributed the comment to Brad Childress, offensive co-ordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Another quote from an NFL release was also allegedly changed.

The story focused on a stricter enforcement this year of an NFL interference rule, which has resulted in an increase in passing yards.

"The Free Press regrets this breach of our journalistic standards and apologizes," wrote Hirst.

Also of note is this sentence in the story: "Given the ease with which journalists can now cut and paste information from the Internet, some newspapers in the U.S. are considering, or have already employed, anti-plagiarism software." Email us if your newspaper has installed this software.

UPDATE -- Here's an excerpt from the Free Press apology:

"AN article published in the Free Press sports section on Nov. 5, under the headline "Passing attacks have room to grow in NFL," was wrongly presented as the original work of a Free Press writer.  In fact, one of the quotes in the article was first published in the daily newspaper USA Today, as was much of the text that appeared outside quotation marks.

The article also contained a quote that first appeared in a National Football League news release, attributed to Brad Childress, offensive co-ordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles. The quote was slightly altered and attributed to Kansas City Chiefs' head coach Dick Vermeil in the Free Press piece.

A quote by Minnesota Vikings' offensive co-ordinator Scott Linehan, which also originally appeared in an NFL press release, was altered too.

The Free Press regrets this breach of our journalistic standards and apologizes."

Thanksgiving error

Here's an error in honor of the holiday, thanks to the Arizona Daily Star:

Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be America's national bird. Wednesday's George L. Mountainlion column on E8 attributed the notion to the wrong historical figure.

Eat your hearts out Strunk & White

The helpful chaps over at  the The Guardian offer up a grammar lesson in addition to a correction:

Jonny Wilkinson (Gregan's Wallabies plot new England fall, page 27, November 23) is recovering from a biceps injury, not a bicep injury. The singular of biceps is biceps. The plural of biceps is biceps.