Craig Silverman tracks accuracy, errors & the craft of verification.
A correction from The Virginian-Pilot:
Because of an editing error, a story (“Odd Fellows”) in the Sunday Magazine section about unusual relationships between animals incorrectly characterized interactions between Nikki the parrot and Mavish the cat. The parrot does talk and actually says, “Give me a kiss!” when playing with the cat.
Thanks to @larrybuch and @charlesapple for the tip.
This was been a good week for Alex Storozynski, the president and executive director of the Kosciuszko Foundation, and a former journalist with the New York Daily News and the New York Sun, among other publications. (He shared a… Read more
Correction: Boney James not recording music for Hustler DVD
“Entertainment news service WENN issued a correction to say a musician is not recording for a porn film: In a story headlined ‘SNOOP & MACK 10 RECORD MUSIC FOR PORN FILM’, published 13 February (12), WENN incorrectly suggested saxophonist Boney James had recorded music for a new Hustler porn DVD, titled Riding the Flying Pink Pig. It is actually rapper Boney Jones who is involved in the soundtrack for the film. James has no connection to the project. Please amend the story on your website/database and accept our apologies for any inconvenience…… WENN Editor”
The New York Times corrected three errors in its obituary for journalist Jeffrey Zaslow:
An obituary on Saturday about the author Jeffrey Zaslow contained several errors. The bookstore where Mr. Zaslow appeared on Thursday, the night before he was killed in an automobile accident, was in Petoskey, Mich., not in Elmira, Mich. Randy Pausch, the subject and co-author of Mr. Zaslow’s book ”The Last Lecture,” delivered the talk that gave the book its title when he learned he was dying of pancreatic cancer, not ”an ailment similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease.” And the plane that the pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III, whose book ”Highest Duty” Mr. Zaslow co-wrote, landed in the Hudson River in 2009 was an Airbus A320 with about 150 passengers, not a commuter plane.
The newly-released book “The Lifespan of a Fact” has benefited from some decent publicity. An excerpt of the book appeared in Harper’s, and there have been interesting articles in The New Yorker and Salon, among other… Read more
Steve Murray is a very funny “graphic columnist” for Canada’s National Post. This week, Murray also submitted a letter to the editor. Murray was moved to write to the paper after the Post published a column, “The lonely life of… Read more
Has the Great Fact Checking Explosion reached a new level of strangeness so soon into the election year?
Or to put it the way some did Tuesday: Has PolitFact jumped the shark?
These questions are cropping up thanks to… Read more
A lot of love in this Talking Points Memo correction:
“Correction: This article originally misidentified the milk carton’s partner as an egg. It is, in fact, a chocolate chip cookie, as a reader pointed out. We have since corrected the error in copy and regret it.”
(Thanks for the tip, @hriefs.)
Dominion Post retracts story that ignored ‘basic principles of reporting’:
On January 30 we ran a story about a 17-year-old Pakistani woman who claimed she had been forced into marriage and held hostage by her ex-husband and his family in Newtown, Wellington.
The story relied on a detailed account from the woman herself that was supported by ethnic women’s support organisation Shakti. We subsequently received information, visual evidence and other material from the ex- husband and his family, which casts considerable doubt over the woman’s allegations.
The Dominion Post acknowledges that some basic principles of reporting were not adhered to and it retracts the woman’s allegations.
The Dominion Post apologises to the ex-husband and his family for any embarrassment and humiliation the story may have caused them.