Regret the Error

Fun with photos

An Aug. 9 story about home builders that helped fuel the current mortgage crisis included a misleading photo. The housing project depicted in the photo was being developed by a company that was not mentioned in the story and has not been implicated in the practices that were described. The photo has been removed from the story. Link

What's wrong with this article?

The Aug. 13 feature "What's Wrong With Alaska?" contained numerous reporting errors: Ben Stevens is under federal investigation, but is not awaiting trial. Alaska's population is majority male and the most male in the nation, at 107 males for every 100 females according to the 2000 census, but the article originally asserted that a substantial majority of the population is male, which is an overstatement. The proportion of residents born out of state is closer to 60 percent than the 80 percent originally claimed in the article. The article said that the state's Permanent Fund payments were about $2,000 per year; in fact, the payments reached a high of $1,963 in 2000, but were only $1,100 in 2006, which is closer to the annual average. Contrary to the author's assertion, Veco did not double the size of Ted Stevens' house without payment. Investigators are trying to determine if Stevens paid full value for construction on his home, and the construction was managed by Veco. Sen. Lisa Murkowski did buy land from a real estate developer at a price that a watchdog group charged was below market value. Contrary to the author's assertion, however, the seller has not been accused of receiving any special consideration from the federal government in return. In addition, Murkowski has since sold back the land. Finally, contrary to the author's assertion, the oil drilling that began in Alaska during the 1970s has taken place largely on state-owned rather than federally owned lands. Salon regrets the errors. Link

UPDATED: Rossiya's Titanic error

A 13 year-old boy in Finland might have a promising career as a fact checker ahead of him.
Last week he revealed that the image of a submarine used by state-owned Russian TV network Rossiya (RTR) to illustrate a story about a Russian submarine voyage to the arctic was in fact from the film Titanic. The image was then distributed by Reuters, which meant it spread to news outlets in countries around the world. That's the danger of picking up reports from other media without doing independent verification. It's something wire services constantly struggle with, and occasionally they get bit.
"I was looking at the photo of the Russian sub expedition and I noticed immediately that there was something familiar about the picture," Waltteri Seretin, the Finnish boy, told a Finnish paper. "I checked it with my DVD and there it was right there in the beginning of the movie: exactly the same image of the submer-sibles approaching the ship."
Here's the official statement from Reuters, and a correction from MSNBC.com below. We have not seen other corrections as of now, which is troubling to say the least.

On August 2, 2007 in a TV story about two Russian submersibles planting a flag on the seabed under the North Pole, we used file shots of MIR submersibles as part of this story.
Reuters mistakenly identified this file footage as originating from the Arctic, and not the North Atlantic where the footage was shot.
This footage was taken during the search for the Titanic and copyright is held by Russian State broadcaster RTR.
This location error was corrected as soon as it was brought to our attention. A still image of the submersibles was also taken from the footage and put out on the Reuters photo wire. The caption has been corrected.

This correction was published on MSNBC.com:

In an Aug. 2 story about Russia planting a flag at the bottom of the North Pole, Reuters provided a photo with a caption identifying a submersible as participating in the expedition. Reuters later corrected that to say the image was of a similar submersible used in the search for the Titanic.

UPDATE August 15: Media watchdog AIM issued a press release earlier today calling for NBC News to issue an on air correction for its use of the erroneous submarine image. We're told that the Nightly News broadcast this evening did include an on air correction delivered by anchor Brian Williams. We couldn't locate the video on their site. Anyone have a link to share?

It's a barnburner, bombshell, barnburner

The July 9 story "Katie Roiphe's Morning After" originally stated that Roiphe misremembered George Will's characterization of her book as a "barnburner," since he actually referred to it as a "bombshell." In fact, he referred to it as a "barnburner" in private correspondence with Roiphe. The story has been corrected. Link

Tried in the press

In an earlier version of a schedule posted July 12 on the Dateline NBC site, Eric McLean was incorrectly referred to as a "convicted murderer." Although Mr. McLean has admitted to shooting Sean Powell, he has not yet been tried, and has not yet formally entered a plea.  His attorney, Bruce Poston, says Mr. McLean will eventually plead "not guilty" to the charge of second-degree murder. Link

Unidentified tackler* at large

In a July 8 story on ESPN.com, it was reported that Andretti Green Racing's Indy Pro Series driver Jaimie Camara tackled Sam Hornish Sr., in a post-race altercation after the Camping World Watkins Glen Grand Prix. In fact, videotape showed that Camara was not the man who tackled Hornish Sr. The person who did remains unidentified. Link

*Correction July 12: This headline initially referred to an "Unidentified tackled man at large" rather than the correct "Unidentified tackler..." Thanks, Aldous!

BBC replaces Parrot story after much-deserved squawking

A note appended to the end of this article on the BBC website:

Note: This story about animal communication has replaced an earlier one on this page which contained factual inaccuracies we were unable to correct. As a result, the original story is no longer in our archive. It is still visible elsewhere, via the link below:'Parrot oratory stuns scientists'

It was updated thanks to many questions raised by the always wonderful Language Log blog. Read all about it here. And, yes, this is the first time we've ever seen a note/correction that talks about "factual inaccuracies we were unable to correct. " It's statement that is serious, and seriously puzzling. A bit more explanation would be appreciated. Fortunately, Language Log offers it.

Thanks for the tip, Linda!

 

The Politico corrects lobbyist story

From an article on Politico.com:

The number of lobbyists registered to represent overseas interests before the U.S. government has stayed nearly constant over the past year, according to figures compiled by the Justice Department.
The figures contradict a story that ran in Wednesday's edition of The Politico, which reported a sharp increase in the number of lobbyists representing foreign entities since the end of 2005.
The story was inaccurate, an error resulting from apparent misunderstanding between a Politico reporter and a spokesman for the Justice Department's Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Office.
The number of foreign agents registered as of Dec. 31, 2005, was 1,881, according to figures provided by Dean Boyd, spokesman for the National Security Division at the DOJ, and confirmed on the department's website. As of June 22, 2007, the most recent date for which figures are available, the number dipped slightly, to 1,862.
The Politico story, by reporter Jeff Patch, quoted lobbyists from several large Washington firms saying they are reorienting their business more toward foreign business....

Thanks, David!

Correction to story about journalists making political donations

A name was listed in error in our June 21 tally of newspeople who made contributions to political campaigns. Joe Cline, a graphic artist at The San Diego Union-Tribune, is in the advertising department, not in news. His name has been removed and the totals for contributions adjusted. Link

This story is getting a lot of play. Background here and here.

The limits of human intelligence

In the June 15 "Human Nature" item on captchas (Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart), William Saletan originally said that test images had become so hard to decipher that a company's chief technology officer flunked 75 percent of them. The source article actually said that the CTO passed 75 percent of the tests, which were administered by Ticketmaster. This mistranslation inadvertently illustrates the article's point: the limits of human intelligence. Link