Regret the Error

Imaginary ages

Brothers Matthew and Liam Lavin are 5 and 2, respectively. Their ages were incorrect in an April 4 Part 2 story about imaginary friends.

Everyone's a credit

An article in Business Day yesterday about an indication that a former director of the New York Stock Exchange, Kenneth G. Langone, may put together a competing bid for the exchange referred incompletely to first reports of the development. The Wall Street Journal's Web site indeed reported Mr. Langone's possible interest in Archipelago Holdings, a company that the exchange plans to acquire, but Newsweek magazine's site was the first to report that he was interested only in the exchange.

Gawker also has an interesting post about this correction, and alleged WSJ errors that have gone uncorrected.

AP really knows its employees

In an April 23 story about the shooting death of Associated Press Television News cameraman Saleh Ibrahim in Mosul and the wounding of AP photographer Mohammed Ibrahim, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the two men were not related. They were brothers-in-law.

Albom stays, is disciplined

The Mitch Albom saga has, in the eyes of the Detroit Free Press, been resolved. Albom's column will return to paper after having been absent since he was placed on paid leave in early April. In a "Letter to readers" published on Saturday, Freep editor and publisher Carole Leigh Hutton noted that Albom and four others have been dealt "disciplinary action," though she declined to detail what it was. Editor & Publisher tracked her down and asked her why she wouldn't explain what action was taken:

“I don’t typically announce disciplinary action I’ve taken with employees and am not in this case,” Hutton told E&P. “I would not anticipate releasing private information from personnel files. I don’t see why I would treat him differently than other employees involved.”

Rather than treat him differently, perhaps she could equally reveal the disciplinary details for each of the five? Perhaps, rather than publish a toothless "letter," she could have detailed the management review's findings and explained why the disciplinary action fit the infraction? Perhaps, if she was concerned about maintaining equality for all involved, she could have chosen a different headline than, "Albom's column to return"? Perhaps a different headline might have also seemed less like a publicity notice? Here's the letter in question:

LETTR TO READERS: Albom's column to return
Five staffers disciplined after management review

April  23, 2005

Dear Readers:

Detroit Free Press management has completed its internal review of an April 3 Mitch Albom column that contained inaccurate information by describing an event that had not yet occurred.

Albom will resume writing columns for the Free Press. His work has not appeared since he addressed the incident with readers on April 7.

Disciplinary action has been taken against five employees, Albom and four others, each of whom had some role in putting the April 3 column into the paper and each of whom had the responsibility to fix errors before publication.

We took into account many factors, including the seriousness of the offense, the importance of our credibility, the history of those involved and Albom's 20 stellar years at the Free Press.

We now look forward to that work continuing in the Free Press.

We also think it's important to report on ourselves and our transgressions in the same way we would report on the institutions we write about regularly. So, reporting is continuing on a story that will be published as soon as it is ready.

The Free Press has an ethics policy that outlines our standards, as well as expectations for staff members. You can find it at www.freep.com/help/ethics_policy.htm.

We offer this recent Freep Letter to the Editor  as a reminder that it is critical for the media to handle episodes such as this in a completely above-the-board manner from start to finish. Readers expect more than just an apology and some nebulous form of "disciplinary action." They want information and analysis -- it's why they read a newspaper in the first place.

I used to believe print journalists were truthful, fair and ethical. That belief started to erode when politicians began to boldly bend the truth and journalists blindly printed what the politicians were lying about because they were either right- or left-leaning. Now it seems if you lie, just apologize and everything will be forgiven.
Fire Mitch Albom or don't fire him, who really cares about truth anymore? I noticed in Albom's apology that he said it wouldn't happen again; he never said it never happened before. Trust is gone for Albom.
Kathy Hayden
Fraser

The old switcheroo

A quote from Jon Snow, which appeared in a comment article, was accidentally altered in editing to mean the opposite of what was intended (Has Paxman turned politics into pantomime? page 26, April 22). Where we had Mr Snow saying of Jeremy Paxman's eradication of deference in political interviewing, "Perhaps we could do with a bit more deference," the original quote was actually, "Perhaps we could do with a bit more of it."

Echoes of schoolyards past

Hey Dingus!

A picture caption yesterday with an article about the Big Dig construction project in Boston misspelled the name of a spectator at a Congressional hearing on the project. He was Chris Tingus, not Dingus.

Hoax sinks its teeth into the press

A recent craze in tech-enabled romance -- as reported by several media outlets and acted out in a recent episode of CSI: Miami -- is for people with Bluetooth-enabled phones to hook up for illicit, anonymous sexual encounters. It's called "toothing" and oh my is it a sexy story. Reuters wrote about it, as did Wired News and the BBC, among others. Unfortunately, the story is too good to be true: the creators of "toothing" recently revealed it to be a hoax. We offer thanks to Jim Hanas who drew our attention to this story. His blog has some great info about the lack of "toothing" corrections here. Here's how Reuters explained "toothing" to the world:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British commuters take note -- the respectable person sitting next to you on the train fumbling with their cell phone might be a "toother" looking for sex with a stranger.

"Toothing" is a new craze where strangers on trains, buses, in bars and even supermarkets hook up for illicit meetings using messages sent via the latest in phone technology.

"Toothing is a form of anonymous sex with strangers -- usually on some form of transport or enclosed area such as a conference or training seminar," says the "Beginner's Guide To Toothing" on a Web site dedicated to the pursuit...

As of now, it appears that Wired News is the only outlet to have officially corrected the story (aside from many blogs). Here's the note it attached to its "toothing" story:

This story is a hoax. Dozens of news organizations, including Wired News, were duped by pranksters claiming to be practitioners of "toothing," in which strangers in the U.K. were meeting up on commuter trains for clandestine sexual encounters. The liaisons were supposedly organized through messages broadcast via Bluetooth phones and handhelds. However, one of those involved now says the story was an elaborate hoax. After first creating an online forum, the pranksters persuaded friends to fill the site with scores of salacious, but fictitious, stories. It was from the contributors to this forum that Wired News found and interviewed – by email – the subjects of the story.

Hanas also points to a correction/story from UK tech site The Register. It's time for the other outlets who ran "toothing" stories to step up and run a correction, or publish a story that admits they were fooled and describes how the hoax spread. Failing to do so deprives readers of necessary information and sends a strong message that the media lacks the resolve to correct its mistakes. It also emboldens would-be hoaxers who can cite the media's refusal to eat humble pie as justification for their actions.

A lesson in reader relations

In the March 7, 2005 edition, the author of a letter to the editor entitled "With changes, Cleary could become much more" on page A7 was shown as "A. Figueiredo." In fact, Alexandre R. Figueiredo did not write the letter or submit it for publication, and the opinions expressed in the letter are not those of Mr. Figueiredo. The Star apologizes for any misunderstanding or embarrassment that may have been caused.

Arrogant Earthlings

The Mini Page, a children's syndicated feature that runs inside the second section of the Sunday comics, recently made two errors. In the April 10 edition about Wind Waves, Tsunamis and Tides, it incorrectly stated that the sun orbits Earth. The sentence should have read: "The orbit of the moon around Earth and Earth around the sun creates forces affecting tides." In the March 27 edition about the Netherlands, the name of Philips Electronics, a Dutch company, was misspelled.

The RIAA's next target: Newlyweds

An article last Sunday about custom CD's created as wedding favors misstated the "fair use" provision of copyright law. That provision covers uses for criticism and teaching. It does not permit a couple to make 500 or fewer copies of copyrighted material.