The authors of CJR’s look at the evolution of magazine fact-checking in the digital age are keenly aware of the consequences of less-robust fact-checking: more frequent corrections. Here are a few of their recent favorites:
Wired, March 9, 2016
Correction: Due to an oversight involving a haphazardly-installed Chrome extension during the editing process, the name Donald Trump was erroneously replaced with the phrase “Someone With Tiny Hands” when this story originally published.
RELATED: Magazines find there’s little time to fact-check online
The Daily Beast, January 22, 2016
Correction: A previous version of the story indicated that Liz Mair would prefer a “dry dog turd” for president over either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. She would only prefer the turd to Trump.
The New York Times Magazine, April 10, 2016
Correction: An article on March 20 about wave piloting in the Marshall Islands misstated the number of possible paths that could be navigated without instruments among the 34 islands and atolls of the Marshall Islands. It is 561, not a trillion trillion.
Arts.Mic, Feb. 1, 2016
Correction: A previous version of this article stated Heriot-Watt University is in Edinburgh, England. The university is in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The New York Times, May 10, 2016
Correction: Because of an editing error, an article on Monday about a theological battle being fought by Muslim imams and scholars in the West against the Islamic State misstated the Snapchat handle used by Suhaib Webb, one of Muslim leaders speaking out. It is imamsuhaibwebb, not Pimpin4Paradise786.
Institutional Investor, February 6, 2017
Correction: In what will go down as perhaps the tardiest correction in magazine – any magazine – history, the earliest edition of Institutional Investor (Spring 1967) mistakenly cited the Montreal Stock Exchange as the location depicted on the cover. We can confirm that this was, in fact, the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange. We regret the error.
RELATED: Unpacking WSJ’s ‘watershed’ Trump editorial
American Iron magazine, November 7, 2016
To err is human, to forgive divine – Alexander Pope
While each issue of American Iron Magazine goes through a rigorous editing process, sometimes things slip through the cracks unnoticed until after the fact. Such was the case with the captions on Donny Peterson’s well-written article about Harley’s new Milwaukee-Eight Engine.
The typo occurred on Page 32 in the caption about oil vs water cooled cylinder heads. The captions should be flipped as the water cooled cylinder head is featured in the first picture, oil cooled in the second. So we wanted to apologize to both Peterson and our readers for any confusion it may have caused. A correction is running in our next issue along with our online apology.
We are, after all, only human. Please forgive our errant ways.
Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin and Susan Currie Sivek are the authors. Bloyd-Peshkin is an associate professor of journalism at Columbia College Chicago, and Currie Sivek is an associate professor of mass communication at Linfield College.