Regret the Error

A chorus of boos for the reviewer

Editor's note: A review of Pearl Jam that appeared in Monday's Inquirer incorrectly characterized the audience's reponse to the keyboardist at Saturday's show. The audience was not booing Kenneth "Boom" Gasper, but cheering him on by chanting his nickname. Link

Spotted by Philadelphia Weekly here.

All tech execs look and sound alike

IN photographs published with an article titled ''Sea change hits skill pool'' in IT Business on May 14, HSBC Australia CIO Chuck Stegan was incorrectly captioned as Westpac group CIO Simon Macnamara and a quote made by Mr Macnamara was attributed to Mr Stegan. Mr Macnamara was incorrectly captioned with Mr Stegan's name and title and a quote by Mr Stegan was attributed to Mr Macnamara. In an article titled ''Flag of Inconvenience'' in IT Business on May 23, it was incorrectly stated that a company called Prognosis was formerly known as Integrated Research.
Prognosis is the name of the Integrated Research company's performance monitoring tools for ICT infrastructure.

Fuzzy numbers #4,621

The illustration published with "An era when graft was commonplace" on C 1 yesterday stated the amount recovered from Ma Man-leung was $130 million. The amount should have been $13 million.

Reuters makes Jimmy Hoffa appear

Please read in third paragraph ... into the disappearance ... instead of ... into the appearance ... Link

The paragraph:

The agency said it planned to brief reporters later on what it called "the conclusion of the execution of a federal search warrant in connection with the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of James Riddle Hoffa."

Dominick Dunne's (mistaken) Diary

Just noticed this on Vanity Fair's website:

The April 2006 "Dominick Dunne's Diary" contained some inaccuracies in its account concerning Helen Fioratti and her art-and-antiques gallery, L'Antiquaire & the Connoisseur ("LATC"). Sotheby's erred in describing as a 19th-century copy an antique desk previously sold by Fioratti and LATC to the interior decorator retained by Dennis Kozlowski. After confirming that the desk was an authentic 18th-century antique, Sotheby's withdrew the desk from its arcade sale and placed it in its prestigious French and Continental Furniture auction, where it sold last year for $90,000. Vanity Fair and Dominick Dunne have no basis to believe that any of the antiques that Fioratti and LATC sold to Kozlowski's interior decorator were fakes or were anything other than authentic antiques. The article incorrectly reported that Fioratti had initiated a criminal investigation of her former employee James Sansum without telling the district attorney that Sansum had previously brought a lawsuit against her. In fact, Fioratti reported her allegations concerning Sansum to law enforcement in August 2001, two months before Sansum filed his lawsuit against her. While the article reported that none of Fioratti's charges of Sansum's alleged corporate theft was pursued by the district attorney, Sansum was indicted for allegedly stealing more than half a million dollars in money, art, and antiques from LATC, but those charges were later dismissed. Sansum pleaded guilty, as part of a plea-and-cooperation agreement, to separate charges of petit larceny for stealing pieces of artwork painted by Fioratti's daughter and of falsifying business records. The article overstated the number of allegedly stolen items found in LATC's inventory after Sansum's indictment and did not mention that, during searches of Sansum's premises, the police recovered 26 pieces of artwork and scores of research books, of which both LATC and Sansum claim sole ownership and which are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit between LATC and Sansum.

Nothing like an apology from a UK tabloid

...because you know they got something fantastically wrong:

GARETH Marron, Gordon Marron, Christopher Marron, Paul O'Rourke, Stephen Rooney, Rory McEneaney, Daniel Friel and Alan Friel
On Monday, February 27, 2006 in a report under the headlines: "RATS TRAPPED" "Bungling gang gets stuck in lift", we stated that eight people who were trapped in a lift at Dundalk Greyhound Stadium were criminally involved in a botched raid on the stadium on Saturday, February 25 last.
We fully accept that the above-recited allegations made about these persons were totally false and without foundation. We wish to retract the entirety of the false statements made concerning them.
We accept that although they were not named or pictured, some readers would have understood the article as referring to the eight persons named above and we accept that the article was defamatory of them.
Accordingly we apologise to each of them for the embarrassment and hurt caused to them by the publication of our report.
We have agreed to pay a sum in damages to each of them and their appropriate legal costs.

Wrong name, wrong number

UNITED TECHNOLOGIES Corp.'s Carrier Corp. spent $250 million to meet new efficiency standards for air conditioners and improve its existing product line. Due to incorrect information from the company's public-relations agency, a Personal Journal article Thursday said Carrier spent $250 billion. The company was also misidentified as United Technology Corp. Link

Handsome apology, with donation

From the Sunday Independent (Ireland):

LAST WEEK in a piece by Will Hanafin on this page, we stated that Keith Doyle had posed for a centrefold in Cosmopolitan. It was not however the handsome Keith but his equally handsome younger brother Craig who was pictured in the magazine. We apologise to Keith for the error and, in the spirit of the centrefolds which were done to raise money for cancer research, we have made a donation to the charity involved.

Richmond Times-Dispatch fires fabricator

A front page letter to readers in Saturday's Richmond Times-Dispatch revealed that a reporter at the newspaper had fabricated part of a story. The reporter, Paul Bradley, has been fired. Editor & Publisher wrote about this here. The note to readers:

A Times-Dispatch article published May 17 about the reaction in Herndon to President Bush's speech on immigration reported a fabricated interview and portrayed a scene at a job center there as though the reporter had visited it. He had not.
Northern Virginia bureau reporter Paul Bradley did not interview Bill Threlkeld, site director for Project Hope and Harmony, as reported in the article.
Bradley interviewed the other sources quoted in the story but did not go to the town that day, as the dateline led readers to believe.
A sentence in the story that described 50 workers sitting at picnic tables waiting for work was taken from a Washington Post story reporting on the town election this month. A job center for immigrants was a major issue in the election.
Also, the pavilion that the story described as protecting the workers from the elements has been planned but not built.
Bradley was dismissed yesterday as a Times-Dispatch employee. A further examination will continue with an outside consultant reviewing his work over recent years.
Integrity is a core value at The Times-Dispatch, and anything less in gathering and reporting the news is unacceptable.
The Editors

 

Newspaper on newspaper corrections, continued again etc.

A caption yesterday incorrectly described five of the people who pleaded guilty to taking part in a scheme to inflate the circulations of Newsday and Hoy as news executives. Four worked in the circulation field and one was a distributor of periodicals. Link

An article in Business Day on Monday about Dean Singleton, the chief executive of the MediaNews Group, referred incorrectly to his management of The Dallas Times Herald. Mr. Singleton sold the newspaper before it was closed; he did not let it "die." The article also referred incorrectly to a joint operating agreement between his paper, The Salt Lake Tribune, and its competitor, The Deseret News. The agreement existed before Mr. Singleton bought The Tribune; he did not force the The News into it. Link

An article in Wednesday's Business section about the new owners of The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News gave the wrong year Bruce E. Toll stepped down as president of Toll Bros. Inc. It was 1998. The article also incorrectly described his status with Puresyn Corp., a company he owns. He remains its chairman. Link