Regret the Error
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November 20, 2009 12:08 PM
Sorry, Wrong Number
It’s not OK for journalists to be bad at math
Every year, Scott Maier, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, asks his students to raise their hands if they went into journalism because they love writing. Unsurprisingly, most of them put their hands in the air.
“Then I ask how many of them got into journalism because they love math and numbers, and the hands...
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November 13, 2009 09:41 AM
A Microformat with Major Implications
A vision of automated correction notifications and more
Imagine this: you visit one of your favorite news sites and the homepage displays a notification that an article you read yesterday has been updated with new information, and a story you read last week has been corrected. The notification enables you to click on a link and read the correction, or to be taken to the updated story.
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November 06, 2009 12:09 PM
Truth or Consequences
“We need more journalists who will bleed over their mistakes”
Henry Allen should not have punched Washington Post colleague Manuel Roig-Franzia in the face in the newsroom last week. That’s not constructive behavior. But I salute the man’s passion for accuracy.
The Washington City Paper’s detailed report of the fisticuffs suggests Allen went after Roig-Franzia in part because of factual errors contained in a charticle produced by Roig-Franzia...
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October 30, 2009 11:16 AM
Learning from Our Mistakes
Journalists must embrace their errors in order to avoid them in the future
They were guaranteed to fail.
Participants in a psychological study were asked trivia questions and told to offer their best answers. They could take their time, but that wasn’t going to help them: it was impossible to answer the questions correctly.
“We asked them what the name is of the African goddess of love and power,” said Nate...
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October 23, 2009 11:22 AM
Speed Demons
Press-conference pranksters reopen the “speed vs. accuracy” debate
The scene that unfolded in the John Peter Zenger Room at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. earlier this week was news-as-comedy at its finest.
The Yes Men group of hoaxsters pretended they were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and that the organization was announcing a decision to back strong climate change legislation. During the press conference,...
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October 16, 2009 11:35 AM
Meet the Tilburg Checkers
Dutch journalism students help keep local media in check
If all goes as planned, sometime today a journalism student in Tilburg, Netherlands will walk into the offices of de Volkskrant, a large Dutch newspaper, and deliver a pie to a reporter. This is not the result of a journalist-on-journalist crush, nor is it a bribe aimed at landing a job. It’s an apology pie, and it’s part...
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October 09, 2009 10:58 AM
The New Great American Pastime
It’s fact checking
Fact checking, along with its kissing cousin “calling bullshit,” is becoming one of the great American pastimes of the Internet age.
We are in the midst of a blossoming of new forms of fact checking, particularly those that rely on crowdsourcing. This is a crucial addition to the discipline, because the traditional form of fact checking, which was primarily developed...
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October 02, 2009 11:08 AM
Code Talking
A new way to float corrections down the river of news
I’m a man of modest dreams.
I’d like to see the Montreal Canadiens win another Stanley Cup as soon as possible, and for the Toronto Maple Leafs to never win one again. I’d like to enjoy good health and a happy life. And I’d like to see corrections evolve in new and useful ways as journalism continues its march online.
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September 25, 2009 12:24 PM
Hed Injuries
Sometimes it’s copy editors who have the last gaffe
I don’t write the headlines.
It’s a line every print journalist will say at least once during his or her career. It’s usually offered because a source or reader was extremely unhappy with a sensational or incorrect headline. The reporter will take a deep breath and explain that editors write headlines, and reporters rarely see them ahead of time. I’m...
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September 18, 2009 11:37 AM
“A Big Chance to Win Back the Public’s Faith”
MediaBugs’s Scott Rosenberg on error-correction in the digital age
Earlier this summer, Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon.com and author of the new book Say Everything, received word that he was one of only nine winners of a 2009 Knight News Challenge grant. As soon as I heard the name of his project, I had a feeling it was going to be something of...
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September 11, 2009 11:13 AM
Michael Kinsley, Correctionaholic
Don’t believe a word of Kinsley’s recent WaPo column
Don’t believe a word of Michael Kinsley’s recent column for the Washington Post.
The man would have you assume that he thinks corrections are a silly thing, especially in the New York Times. His larger point, of course, is that correcting the minor errors of journalism does nothing to bolster the public’s faith in our profession. (A survey...
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September 04, 2009 10:35 AM
Spoiling the Broth
When recipes get it wrong
Around this time last year, celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson was tucking into a big piece of humble pie.
Worrall Thompson gave an interview to Healthy & Organic Living magazine last summer in which he talked about eating healthy, organic food and foraging for wild plants and weeds. He also offered a tip to readers: add a little henbane to...
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August 28, 2009 10:05 AM
Lost in Translation
When the 'schlong' word is the wrong word
It was a perfect silly season story, an article tailor made for the dog days of August. Tuesday morning broke with this offering from a Reuters reporter in Europe:
Visitors to a tourist attraction in Berlin have been making off with an unusual memento—the 30 cm long penis of a Lego giraffe.
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The Lego phallus belongs to a six... -
August 21, 2009 10:42 AM
Saluting The Sun
The British tabloid offers the world’s most amusing corrections
Very few newspapers or other media outlets provide me with better material for my errors and corrections Web site than The Sun, a British tabloid. The paper is perhaps the most consistent supplier of false allegations and titillating stories that later become egregious, amusing apologies and corrections. The errors and corrections beat would be a darker place...
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Desks
The Audit Business
The Observatory Science
- Saving Corwin’s Creatures MSNBC wades into new territory with environmental documentary 100 Heartbeats
- Trains, Planes, and Carbon Offsets Times keeps a needed eye on green premiums
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- Greg Craig and Transparency
- Not For All the News in China, Part I Former NYT Shanghai bureau chief Howard French on the coverage of Obama’s trip to Asia
