Regret the Error

More mistaken identities and genders

A pedestrian killed in Hanford was misidentified on Page B2 of Tuesday's Bee as Daniel Richard Childers, 29, of Lemoore. The victim was Antonio Ornelas Sanzon, 48, of Hanford. Childers was the driver.

Because of an editing error, the sex of one of the children of ceramist Jill Rosenwald was misidentified in Sunday's Boston Globe Magazine. Her 2-year-old, Loch, is a boy.

Because of a reporting error, the late husband-and-wife design team Charles and Ray Eames were misidentified as brothers in yesterday's Galleries column in the Weekend section.

A tacky correction

This is an oldie but goodie from the May 29, 2004 edition of The Globe:

Because of a reporting error, Dr. Arleigh Dygert Richardson III, former teacher at Lawrence Academy in Groton, was described in his obituary yesterday as favoring tacky pants with tweed jackets and Oxford shirts. Dr. Richardson favored khaki pants.

With thanks to Peg for sending it along.`

"You be the Editor" results

Our special "You be the Editor" version of our weekly Crunks generated many responses. In the end, the number of votes for keeping the new version of our site description were equal to the number that advocate putting the comma back.

What are we to do? Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing.

What we mean to say is that we will leave the altered description in place and hereby declare that this site will attempt to adhere to AP style. Our copy of "Strunk & White" tells us otherwise, but we are throwing our lot in with the AP, even though they certainly aren't perfect. Neither, we should say, is Lynne Truss, the author of "Eats, Shoots & Leaves." Just read Louis Menard's smack down of the book in this The New Yorker article. (He weighs in on the serial comma debate in the first paragraph. It seems he'd like us to put the comma back. No dice.)

Apologies to those who object to our decision. Please keep reading and pointing out our mistakes. The site just isn't the same without them -- and you.

Ombudsmen Round-Up

• Paul Moore of the Baltimore Sun writes about whether the mainstream media is in crisis, and what his paper is doing about accuracy and accountability.
• Christine Chinlund of The Boston Globe writes about recent controversy over the "Mallard Fillmore" comic strip.
• Kate Parry of The Minneapolis Star Tribune writes about her paper's coverage of the Iraq war.
• Armando Acuña of The Sacramento Bee writes about restaurant ratings.
• Michael Arrieta-Walden of The Oregonian writes about blogs.
• Connie Coyne of The Salt Lake Tribune also chimes in on blogs.
• Michael Getler of The Washington Post writes about the state -- and future -- of newspapers.

No one let the dogs out

With thanks to Ben for spotting this:

An item Page E1 on Thursday incorrectly reported that dog owners could bring their dogs to the Red Carpet Event for Dog Lovers Sunday at Jax Caffe. Dogs are not allowed.

Another Thompson error

You can see a previous Thompson error below. This one calls an oft-referenced HST passage into doubt:

Questions have been raised about the accuracy of a quotation attributed to Hunter S. Thompson that ran with his obituary Monday and in an editorial Tuesday: "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." The quote, which has appeared often in print and electronic media in recent years, differs from a version in Thompson's "Generation of Swine" that reads: "The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason." There is no second sentence about "a negative side." Some observers believe that in its frequent retelling, "the TV business" became "the music business" and the second sentence was added by persons unknown.

Other things happen in Iraq

The caption on Feb. 14 for a picture by Reuters with the continuation of an article about the Iraqi elections misstated the reason Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite cleric, was weeping. He was participating in a mourning ritual as part of Ashura, a holy Shiite festival - not reacting to results showing that his political alliance had won a slim majority of seats. A second caption for a Reuters photo misstated the reason a Shiite was shown flagellating himself in a Baghdad procession. He was taking part in the same mourning ritual, not celebrating the election outcome

Kegger for everyone

A chart in early editions Wednesday detailing binge drinking in the United States mistakenly labeled two lists as "States with High Binge Drinking Rates." The second list should have been labeled as a list of the states with the lowest binge drinking rates. The states with the general populace having a low rate are Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Utah, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. States where college students had low binge drinking rates are Utah, Oregon, New Hampshire, Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, California, Idaho, Tennessee and New Mexico.

Oh doctor

Congratulations to The Guardian, which managed to make two people roll over their graves with just one error:
In our G2 cover story about Hunter S Thompson yesterday we mistakenly attributed to Richard Nixon the view that Thompson represented "that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character". On the contrary, it was what Thompson said of Nixon.

Lost in translation

Another Asian language error (see this from last week):

THE CHINESE CHARACTER "fu," when printed upside down during the Chinese New Year holiday, is a visual pun that when literally pronounced "upside-down fu" in Mandarin sounds like another Mandarin word, "dao fu," which means "fortune arriving." In some editions the Advertising column Feb. 14 about a new Absolut vodka campaign in mainland China and the caption to an accompanying graphic incorrectly said that the character when printed upside-down means "welcome."