Regret the Error

Anatomy of an ovation

The Associated Press reported on Aug. 25 that Puerto Rico's governor earned a standing ovation when he called for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq during his speech to a conference of National Guardsmen. The story should have made clear that Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila was given a standing ovation at the end of his speech, which covered various military issues, rather than immediately after his call for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Link

The fan speaks (without profanity)

Boeing Classic | Qualifier Stewart fires 66 for lead: A previous version of this story contained an error. A fan exchanging barbs with golfer Curtis Strange on Friday at the Boeing Classic was not escorted from the hole, as reported in Saturday's Sports section. The fan, who was not named in the article, says he was warned, but was not escorted or asked to leave the area. The fan also said he did not use profanity, as reported. Link

Know thyself

Because of information provided by the Fresno County District Attorney's Office, a story on Page B2 of Saturday's Local & State section about the sentencing of a man for kidnapping and robbing Joyce Ahumada incorrectly described her as a former Fresno Bee carrier. She still works for the newspaper. Link

Anatomy of a boo

An Aug. 26 Metro article and headline about a candidate forum for the Muslim community in Reston may have left the impression that some in the crowd booed Loudoun County Supervisor Eugene A. Delgaudio (R-Sterling) because he asked whether they "come in peace" and pledge allegiance to the United States. The boos occurred after Delgaudio said those things, but event organizers contend that the crowd booed Delgaudio for his stance on illegal immigrants.

Is he still a hero?

In the Do Right Men story, "Turn Up the Heat" [August 2007], members of The Racing Team were misidentified. They are, from left, Calvin Gravely, Micheal Harris, Chris Justice. In addition, the profession of Antoine Stanford, featured in Do Right Men's Everyday Heroes, was listed incorrectly. He is a federal sales representative, not a policeman. We regret these errors.

Lose the words, lose the meaning

Young's $10M earmark focus of inquiry: Because of a computer problem, the first nine words of the story were dropped. The story should have read as follows: "A Justice Department corruption task force is investigating whether Alaska Congressman Don Young took campaign cash in return for securing $10 million for construction of a proposed Florida highway ramp that would give a windfall to a local real estate developer, a source familiar with the inquiry said Friday." Because the first nine words were missing, the story erroneously quoted the source as saying Young had taken the cash. In fact, the task force is trying to determine whether or not that allegation is true. Link

The Local gets ripped off, again

Last November we posted an item about how The Local, an English language news website in Sweden, had claimed that Chinese news service Xinhua was stealing its articles. Last week The Local noted that several of its articles had apparently been plagiarized by SR, the Swedish public radio broadcaster. SR eventually posted a "clarification" about the situation, which The Local Accepted. From The Local:

...Closer examination revealed that more than a dozen news articles were pretty much copied and pasted from The Local, and some were read aloud on the radio.
We made inquiries with Radio Sweden, who took down the articles and apologised to us personally. On Wednesday, an article about this appeared on the website of media industry magazine Resumé, after which SR published a clarification in English  and Swedish on its website.
We were naturally disappointed that this happened in the first place, fearing that our readers could conclude that we had plagiarised Radio Sweden. We are reassured by SR’s clarification and thank them for their prompt response.

Fake Sharpton blog quoted by MSNBC

An Aug. 23 story about racial divisions over the Michael Vick case quoted from a blog entry purportedly by the Rev. Al Sharpton. MSNBC.com has determined that the blog is a hoax. In July, Sharpton signed a letter with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemning dogfighting, saying, “Dogfighting is unacceptable. Hurting animals for human pleasure or gain is despicable. Cruelty is just plain wrong.” Link

Background here.

A bad connection

A faulty satellite telephone connection between Afghanistan and New York led us to miss a vital negative in a quote included in 'Civilian death toll rises' (News, 12 August). We said International Crisis Group's Michael Shaikhas had told us that researchers had found evidence indicating 'indiscriminate and disproportionate' use of force by international soldiers, but he actually said: 'There is no evidence indicating that international soldiers were using indiscriminate and disproportionate force.' We also said at least 348 civilian deaths had been caused by coalition operations in Helmand in the first six months of this year, but the figure referred to civilian deaths across all Afghanistan. We also gave the total of civilians killed last year as 320. It was actually 230. Link

Repeat apology

A Diary item on August 3, page 33, repeated an unfounded allegation that David Blunkett MP had been "sacked from two ministerial posts in succession". As was made clear in this column in March this year, Mr Blunkett's resignations in December 2004 and November 2005 were voluntary. We apologised to Mr Blunkett for the error then and are happy to do so again. Link