Big, bad error in the Ottawa Citizen this week.
Yesterday it ran a major story on the front of its City section stating that a man had been convicted for a fourth time of sexually assaulting a minor. At the center of the above-fold story was a picture of the accused. Well, a picture the paper thought was of the accused. In reality, it showed a completely innocent man who has the misfortune of bearing a name similar to that of the convicted pedophile. The paper today ran a large apology on the front of its City section to try and clear the man's name. An embarrassing error for the paper, a tragic mistake for the innocent man.
The paper did the right thing by placing the apology in a location that is commensurate with the original story, though a strong argument can be made for putting it on the front page. The paper should also consider running it for more than one day, just to ensure readers don't miss it. And one thing missing from the apology is an explanation of how the error occurred.
Images of the original story and two of the resulting apology are below (click for larger). We also have two other recent Citizen corrections/apologies of note underneath them.
We also located this recent Citizen Clarification and Apology from May 12:
The headline on an article published March 14 might have given some readers the mistaken impression that Abdullah Almalki was implicated in a U.S. court case in which Mohamad Elzahabi is on trial for allegedly making a false statement to FBI agents during a terrorism investigation. Mr. Elzahabi is not on trial for any terrorism-related offence. Mr. Almalki has been asked to give evidence relevant to the allegedly false statement. The Citizen article was never intended to suggest that Mr. Almalki is a terrorist or is linked to any terrorism trials. The Citizen regrets any confusion caused by the headline, and apologizes to Mr. Almalki for any distress the Citizen may have caused him.
UPDATE: A reader just reminded us of a similar Citizen photo error from January when the paper mistakenly identified a murder victim's son as the accused. Time to reexamine those photo policies, perhaps?
