Regret the Error

Iran, Iraq...whatever

A headline in yesterday's editions of The Sun about a U.N. Security Council resolution on sanctions against Iran incorrectly referred to Iraq. Link

A previous one here.

Paper runs a letter, then realizes the words seem familiar

A letter to the editor published July 26, headlined "Israel defending itself," was copied from a recent Star editorial and submitted without proper attribution. The Star regrets any confusion this may have caused readers.

This is confusing. Did a reader plagiarize from the paper's editorial and then submit it as a letter to the editor?

A lengthy correction

This ran in the Washington Post:

A Religion News Service article that ran July 15 and recounted a story published by the Forward newspaper about Agriprocessors Inc. contained several inaccuracies that were not in the Forward's article.
The Forward's article reported on claims by workers and others of abusive working conditions at the Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse and the company's denial of those claims.
The Forward and RNS noted that Agriprocessors' slaughter techniques had been the subject of a 2004 undercover video by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's investigation of the company for alleged violations of the Humane Slaughter Act was concluded last year, and the U.S. attorney's office declined to prosecute.
RNS said the USDA had released a report finding violations of the act, but the document -- an investigator's internal memo -- actually had been obtained by PETA through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The news service also reported that animal welfare expert Temple Grandin had not been allowed to visit the Agriprocessors facility in the wake of the video, but Grandin had visited the plant as a paid consultant to Agriprocessors in June of this year and said that what she saw then was working very well.
Also, RNS reported that a PETA spokesman said Agriprocessors refused to allow inspectors to verify that it changed its slaughter techniques. But Agriprocessors spokesman Mike Thomas said the facility had passed four audits by outside animal-treatment auditors in the past year, and USDA personnel are at the facility every day it is in operation.
Although community members and others have claimed that Agriprocessors' work force is largely undocumented, Thomas said all prospective employees are required to document their immigration status.
The RNS article reported that Agriprocessors, with six citations, accounted for more than half the violations cited this year at Iowa meatpacking plants by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA statistics, however, show there were 15 citations at the four plants inspected so far, making Agriprocessors' share less than half. Link
 

Fuzzy numbers #4,632

From the Townsville Bulletin of Australia:

A STORY published in yesterday's Townsville Bulletin titled 'Drug sales cost dearly', incorrectly stated Matthew Thomas Flanagan, 30, sold 448 ecstasy tablets worth $50,380.
The tablets were in fact worth $15,380.

Sounds like...

An article on Sunday about young American Jews whose plans to visit Israel have been complicated by violence in the region incorrectly rendered a word in a quotation by Jerome A. Chanes, a faculty scholar at Brandeis University who specializes in American Jewish culture. He said, “Most of the yeshivas are in and around Jerusalem, and there are always security problems there” — not “sectarian” problems there. Link

The birds and the bees

An article yesterday about an abundance of butterflies in South Texas misstated a step in butterfly reproduction. It is the butterfly itself, not the caterpillar, that lays eggs. Link

Fuzzy numbers #4,631.1

A correction to this Fuzzy Numbers correction:

The figure given in a correction yesterday of £1.5m in remittances sent abroad by migrant workers in the UK was an underestimate. In fact a sample of 10,000 people sent that sum. By extrapolation, the total figure is around £440m. Link

The Aspers did it

An apology:

We reported wrongly yesterday that Lloyd Axworthy, a former Liberal foreign affairs minister, criticized Winnipeg's Asper family for using its media empire to defend Israel and shape Canadian foreign policy. He did not say that. In fact, Axworthy was referring to groups of diaspora -- various ethnic communities in today's multicultural society -- influencing Canadian foreign policy. Where we quoted Axworthy as saying "the Aspers," he in fact had said "diasporas." We sincerely apologize to both Axworthy and the Asper family.

FYI The Aspers run CanWest, one of the largest media companies in Canada. They own newspapers (but not the Press), television stations, radio stations etc. in Canada and other countries.

Putting words in their mouth

A headline on Saturday's Hampton Roads front said police called a robbery at Victory Crossing in Portsmouth a "comedy of errors." Police did not characterize the incident using those words. Link

Fixing that "half-hearted correction"

We posted a retraction from Investor's Business Daily a couple of days ago and expressed the belief that it was less than a full retraction. It appears that someone out there agreed with us. So Investor's Business Daily published a more direct one yesterday:

We received a demand to clarify our retraction in the July 26 edition of Investor's Business Daily concerning the editorial titled "Mineta's Welcome Exit, Stage Left" that ran June 28. We do so as follows: It was erroneous to say that Suhail Khan or the mosque or its parishioners are "hard-line Wahhabi." It also was erroneous to say that any money was raised by the mosque or that funds were used to purchase satellite phones.