Regret the Error

About a letter

In Janet Daley's column "Green lobby must not stifle debate on the environment'' (Monday, March 12), she referred to the letter which Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary, wrote to Channel 4 executives concerning their decision to commission Martin Durkin to make the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.
The Daily Telegraph is happy to make clear:
* Mr Huhne's letter was not an attempt to prevent the film being shown or suppress debate on the issue;
* He attached an article by George Monbiot that alleged that the Independent Television Commission had upheld complaints about the making of a similar series for Channel 4 in 1997;
* He asked Channel 4 to comment on the proposition that, if Mr Monbiot was correct, it seemed "particularly odd'' to commission Mr Durkin again.
The Daily Telegraph regrets any misunderstanding that has arisen. Link

Troubled source deludes herself -- and the NYT Magazine

The New York Times published a lengthy editor's note yesterday. Actually, it published two of them; both are on this site today. This one involves a former naval construction worker who told the Times magazine that she served in Iraq, was in a Humvee that blew up, and was raped twice while serving in the Navy.

In fact, she never served in Iraq and a medal she received for service, which appeared to bolster her Iraq story, was awarded in error. The larger issue seems to be that the Navy wasn't able to come up with the correct information about her prior to publication. But were they given enough time? The editor's note says a "researcher" (fact checker) contacted the Navy "three days before the story went to press." Not exactly a lot of time to gather and evaluate the information, especially if some discrepancies emerge, which they did. A report in Air force Times (spotted by Gawker) quotes the Navy official as saying they weren't given enough time, something that the magazine disputes:

The Navy, while expressing sympathy to a woman it believes is suffering from stress, is annoyed that the Times did so little to check the woman’s story. A Times fact checker contacted Navy headquarters only three days before the magazine’s deadline. That, said Capt. Tom Van Leunen, deputy chief of information for the Navy, did not provide enough time to confirm Randall’s account of service in Iraq. Nonetheless, Van Leunen said, by deadline the Navy had provided enough information to the Times “to seriously question whether she’d been in Iraq.”
Aaron Rectica, who runs the magazine’s research desk, disputes that. He said that by deadline, the Navy had not given the Times any reason to disbelieve Randall’s claim of service in Iraq. Rectica said the Navy only told the paper that Randall’s commanders believed she’d been in Iraq but that no one in the unit had been in combat.

The magazine went back to the woman with the issues (which she disputed) and included in the story the comments from the Navy that seemed to question some of her claims. If you read the original article, it's clear that the writer had some doubts about this woman's story. As Gawker notes:

If you look at all the hedge-words and qualifiers Corbett [the writer] uses to describe Randall in the piece, it's pretty clear that she had some reservations about the woman's story. By way of introduction, she wrote of Randall's tendency to "[coexist] with her memories"—to "mostly [inch] up to them" instead of just remembering what happened.
You can see Corbett covering her tracks in the original piece, saying that, when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder, the truth of what happened is less important than the way someone remembers it...

 

After publication, the Navy found conclusive evidence that contradicted the woman's story. Bad for the Times, bad for the Navy, bad for the source, who now looks like either a liar or someone with some serious personal issues.  Perhaps more time should have been given to the Navy to respond; or this woman should have been withheld from the article given the initial questions about her story and lack of a definitive answer from the Navy. That would have saved everyone a lot of embarrassment. The note:

The cover article in The Times Magazine on March 18 reported on women who served in Iraq, the sexual abuse that some of them endured and the struggle for all of them to reclaim their prewar lives. One of the servicewomen, Amorita Randall, a former naval construction worker, told The Times that she was in combat in Iraq in 2004 and that in one incident an explosive device blew up a Humvee she was riding in, killing the driver and leaving her with a brain injury. She also said she was raped twice while she was in the Navy.

On March 6, three days before the article went to press, a Times researcher contacted the Navy to confirm Ms. Randall’s account. There was preliminary back and forth but no detailed reply until hours before the deadline. At that time, a Navy spokesman confirmed to the researcher that Ms. Randall had won a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal with Marine Corps insignia, which was designated for those who served in a combat area, including Iraq, or in direct support of troops deployed in one. But the spokesman said there was no report of the Humvee incident or a record of Ms. Randall’s having suffered an injury in Iraq. The spokesman also said that Ms. Randall’s commander, who served in Iraq, remembered her but said that her unit was never involved in combat while it was in Iraq. Both of these statements from the Navy were included in the article. The article also reported that the Navy had no record of a sexual-assault report involving Ms. Randall.

After The Times researcher spoke with the Navy, the reporter called Ms. Randall to ask about the discrepancies. She stood by her account.

On March 12, three days after the article had gone to press, the Navy called The Times to say that it had found that Ms. Randall had never received imminent-danger pay or a combat-zone tax exemption, indicating that she was never in Iraq. Only part of her unit was sent there; Ms. Randall served with another part of it in Guam. The Navy also said that Ms. Randall was given the medal with the insignia because of a clerical error.

Based on the information that came to light after the article was printed, it is now clear that Ms. Randall did not serve in Iraq, but may have become convinced she did. Since the article appeared, Ms. Randall herself has questioned another member of her unit, who told Ms. Randall that she was not deployed to Iraq. If The Times had learned these facts before publication, it would not have included Ms. Randall in the article. Link

UK's Independent on Sunday apologizes for stand on pot; reader's editor weighs in on when to apologize

Below is yesterday's column from the reader's editor of the Independent on Sunday. It comes in the wake of the paper's front page story of March 18, "Cannabis: An apology," in which it reversed its position in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana. This is one of those rare cases when new evidence causes a newspaper to step back from a long-held position and offer up an apology. The column below discusses why the paper did so in this case and not others. Making a belated apology (see "Trend of the Year") often elicits the question from readers: why only for this?

Sorry. Not always the hardest word for newspapers, who often say it at the bottom of columns like this after receipt of expensively printed notepaper from solicitors with menacing-sounding names. Even if you don't feel in the wrong, it is often handy to apologise rather than risk expensive legal action.
But last week's front page headed "Cannabis: an apology" was of an entirely different order. I cannot recall an occasion where a national newspaper has turned its entire lead story into a mea culpa under a banner headline. Jonathan Owen's report that 20,000 young people are hooked on the drug was powerful stuff, and many readers have applauded the IoS's decision to express regret over its former "Legalise Cannabis Campaign" in the light of new knowledge.
But the problem with apologies is that you can never go far enough for some. "Good," writes Phil Robertson from Crowthorne in Berkshire. "Now why don't you apologise for all the other things you got wrong." But where should we start? Richard Morris, a regular correspondent, has been nagging me for months over a front-page headline from last year - "Home by May", in which we predicted that large numbers of British troops would be brought home from Iraq by early summer. It didn't happen.
But I think stories like this are of a different nature from the misconceived cannabis campaign, and don't require a formal apology. Most derive from information carefully weighed up by our specialist writers, and play a part in the national political conversation of the day.
It is entirely healthy for papers to be able to shift their positions. But there is a difference between tweaks in matters of policy and backing a drug that harms people. This newspaper, for example, was originally against Ken Livingstone's congestion charge. We were wrong on that, too, as it turned out. But apologise? I think not.
Our doubts about the cannabis campaign and our concerns about the dangers the drug poses to young people were given chilling affirmation last week when cannabis addict Tom Palmer was jailed for life for murdering two school friends with a hunting knife. "Sorry" was absolutely the right word.

A dousing of errors

From the Telegraph Herald of Dubuque, IA:

An article about the Dubuque Fire Department on the Nostalgia page (1D) Tuesday contained several errors.
According to Bill Hammel, who is researching and writing "The History of the Dubuque Fire Department," the author of the Nostalgia story "Getting Fired Up" based his facts on various sources that included the errors. Here is the list:
* The Dubuque Fire Department apparatus was never housed in barns.
* No insurance company ever funded any unit of the Dubuque Fire Department.
* Dubuque did not purchase any engine from any Boston manufacturer in 1856. Dubuque Volunteers purchased a Hunneman engine in 1854. This engine was manufactured in Boston.
* Dubuque did not purchase a steam engine until 1867. It was a Silsby 2nd Class and was named for J. K. Graves, Dubuque's mayor at that time.
* In 1855 and in 1856, Dubuque Volunteers purchased Button "Piano" type engines from the Button Company; these were manufactured in the state of New York.
* A couple of other errors in the article were the spelling of the Lesure Lumber Company and of the Brammers grocery store.
The TH regrets the errors. Link

NOTE: This is one of the only newspapers to publish all corrections on the front page, regardless of the error.

 

Correction to article and editorial

IN an article in our March 14, 2007 edition, ''Jail for assault sparked by sex attack'', we stated that national kickboxing champion Michael John Siebert and bouncer Adrian Evert Franklin were not jailed despite bashing a soldier so severely that he almost died.
In an editorial of that same edition, we also stated that two men who beat a soldier almost to death were allowed free but a youth leader is jailed for letting his righteous anger get out of control. We wish to clarify matters in respect of those statements.
1. The Supreme Court found that although Mr Siebert and Mr Franklin committed dangerous act resulting in serious actual danger to the health of the soldier, both acted spontaneously and without reference to the other.
2. Mr Siebert was convicted of committing a dangerous act, by kneeing or kicking the soldier two or three times heavily when the soldier was hunching over and yelling out. This offence is not the same offence to which Mr Poulter pleaded guilty to, being the offence of causing grievous harm, which both Mr Franklin and Mr Siebert were acquitted of. We do not intend any imputation that Mr Siebert or Mr Franklin had caused grievous harm by comparing their sentences for dangerous acts causing serious actual danger with that of Mr Poulter causing grievous bodily harm.

Apology

IN last night's Liverpool Echo, we carried an article suggesting that BBC1 controller Peter Fincham had set out in a memo his decision not to recommission the series Lilies because the audience was "largely older and predominantly working class".
In fact, no such memo exists and those were not the reasons Lilies was not recommissioned.
Accordingly, we would like to apologise to Mr Fincham for any embarrassment we have caused him. Link

Favorite band, huh?

In the March 19 "Supreme Court Dispatches," Dahlia Lithwick misspelled the name of her favorite band "Hanson" as "Hansen." Link

So how did the quotes end up in the paper

IN an article in some editions of The Daily Telegraph yesterday, it was reported that Sydney Swans captain Leo Barry believed methamphetamine ''had become the drug of choice for professional footballers'' and that the drug was ''a scourge'' that had ''spread deep into the AFL''. Mr Barry did not make those claims.
While he did say it would be ''naive'' to think no player had used ''ice'', he did not make the general comments attributed to him about widespread drug use within the AFL, nor does he believe illegal drug use is prevalent in AFL ranks. The Daily Telegraph apologises for the error.

Did someone else say that? Or were those quote made up?

Fuzzy numbers etc.

Hawaiian National Monument -- An article about the newly created Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument ("Midway Not Just for the Birds," March 18) incorrectly reported the size of the monument. It has 4,500 square miles of coral reef, not 4,500 acres. Link

Fuzzy numbers etc.

FOR THE RECORD: In "How Can I Stop the Hiccups?" [Vital Advice, Feb., page 26] we recommended mentally adding two two-digit numbers to get rid of hiccups; the correct method is to multiply them. We regret the error.