Alessandra Stanley's often alarming corrections were the subject of much discussion this past year. It largely began because of the ridiculous and embarrassing Geraldo nudge that wasn't. Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune gave her a kick in a column, citing some of her errors (the link to the piece is no longer active), and then John Cook of Reference Tone dove in here. Gawker got in on the act and kept after her with its "Alessandra Stanley Watch."
Now Gawker has gone one better and done research that it claims proves Stanley is the most inaccurate of all New York Times cultural critics. "We checked 2005 corrections rates on 19 Times
cultural critics, and we discovered that Stanley can comfortably claim
the title as Most Inaccurate 2005," they write. "Indeed, she’s more than twice as
inaccurate as the average non-Stanley critic at the Times." The five least accurate Times cultural critics, according to Gawker:
- Alessandra Stanley, TV critic: 137 citations, 20 corrections, 15%
- Anna Kisselgoff, dance critic: 22 citations, 3 corrections, 14%
- Caryn James, film critic: 33 citations, 4 corrections, 12%
- Michael Kimmelman, art critic: 53 citations, 6 corrections, 11%
- Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic: 41 citations, 4 corrections, 10%
One little note: Some corrections contain more than one error, so the number of corrections doesn't necessarily mean the number of errors. Not to say that this nitpick negates Gawker's interesting research.
