Our annual Regrets issue is a painful time for the copy editors. Being reminded of all the mistakes I tried to forget, reliving every typo…
I take consolation in reading the corrections in other papers; it makes me feel a bit better, like it’s not just me. I also enjoy reading www.regrettheerror.com where journalist Craig Silverman “reports on media corrections, retractions, apologies, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the press.” The entries are sometimes funny, sometimes mundane, sometimes horrible.
A few small examples from the site:
Because of an editor’s error, a photograph of Neil Diamond was incorrectly used in a review of Neil Young at the DCU Center in Worcester in Monday’s Telegram & Gazette.
We mistakenly appointed Bill Gates to the post of US defence secretary in an article with the headline: Obama’s education secretary is Chicago schools chief, 17 December, page 21. Robert Gates is currently secretary of defence in the US. Bill Gates is the founder and chairman of Microsoft and a philanthropist.
Some versions of this story incorrectly said: “One out of every two Black Americans is infected with HIV, according to a new report from the Black Aids Institute.” In fact, as the story now says, “One in two persons newly infected with HIV in the U.S. is African-American … ”
In a Nov. 6 story about AC/DC, The Associated Press erroneously quoted producer Brendan O’Brien as saying the band’s music was aggressive in a way that’s catchy and “hokey.” The word he actually used was “hooky,” which is music-industry parlance for a song full of irresistible refrains, or “hooks.”
The new sex columnist for the New York Press resigned after her first column included questions taken from Dan Savage’s syndicated sex column.
Yeah, we decided Dan’s already said all there is to say about SEX; several times over, in fact; so we canned the bitch and the position.