Boffoblog

Corrections of the Week

Geography lessons desperately needed at the Chicago Tribune:

In Thursday's main news section, a map showing the location of U.S. nuclear power plants incorrectly labeled Arizona as New Mexico. There are three nuclear reactors at Arizona's Palo Verde site; New Mexico has no nuclear reactors.

Because of an editing error, a New York Times news story Tuesday about Chinese military sales to Iran referred to Iran as an "Arab nation." It is not.

Finally, because some may have missed the original story, the LA Times correction gives us most of what we need to know:

A story in some copies of [Wednesday's] Calendar suggested that Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," was being considered as a "potential inheritor" of an anchor role on the "CBS Evening News." In his session Tuesday at the Television Critics Assn. meeting in Universal City, CBS Chairman and Chief Executive Leslie Moonves did not characterize Stewart as such but said he wouldn't rule out approaching Stewart for some other type of role in the newscast after Dan Rather retires. Also, noting that Comedy Central and CBS are both owned by Viacom, the story quoted Moonves as saying, "Jon Stewart is part of our company, so we would talk to him." Moonves actually said: "Jon Stewart is part of our company. We speak to him regularly about all sorts of different things."

Corrections of the Week

To make up for the last two weekends' worth while I was on vacation, here are several corrections.  First, from the New York Times:

An article in the Lives They Lived issue on Dec. 26 about Mary McGrory, the Washington columnist, referred incorrectly to some guests at her parties. George Stephanopoulos was not at the first one attended by the writer, Maureen Dowd, though he was a guest (and occasional canape server) at some later ones.

Showing their readership is some what different from that of the Times, a correction from the Dallas Morning News:

A Jan. 9 article incorrectly said the Bad Boy Heavy Muscle Truck can climb a 60-degree grade. It can climb a 60 percent grade.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Valley street names — A Jan. 8 Voices article on San Fernando Valley street names said the title of Burt Prelutsky's book is "Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From Heaven." It is "Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco."

And finally, from the BBC, those dam homophones!

CORRECTION: The BBC News website had a homophone in its report on the North of England Education Conference.

The story said: "Straight after Ms Kelly's speech I spoke to a number of teachers' and head teachers' leaders. None was overwhelmed by what they had heard but, equally, none of them was damming either."

Correction of the Week: Holiday Edition

Ellen Goodman's column in yesterday's Boston Globe lists the corrections and regrets from her year's columns.  Here is but one:

Have you noticed that the only thing that the abstinence-only crowd cannot abstain from is criticizing their critics? Writing about their sex mis-education, we chided a text for teaching, among other things, that "cervical cancer is the result of premarital sex." Dozens of readers wrote to insist that since the human papillomavirus strain may cause cervical cancer, this cancer qualifies as a sexually transmitted disease.

Well, folks, it's still not the premarital sex that causes the cancer. But let's make a deal: We will add that STD footnote to our annual list if they will add condoms to their curriculum.

Correction of the Week

From the December 16th Chicago Tribune:

A Dec. 5 story about a rally in Chicago misquoted Victor Wojtychiw, a Ukrainian American, in describing this statement as an old Ukrainian saying: "It doesn't matter how many votes there are; it matters who counts the votes." In fact, the saying is widely attributed to Josef Stalin.

Correction of the Week

From the Washington Post:

A Dec. 8 article on Bernard B. Kerik's nomination as secretary of homeland security misstated the reason he has not commented on allegations about him. Custom, rather than formal rules, prevents him from making such statements before his confirmation hearings. Also, a Dec. 4 article incorrectly described Kerik's bachelor's degree from Empire State College as "mail-order." He earned the degree by taking correspondence courses.

Correction of the Week

A rare retraction from George Will:

In 2003, after many years of stoutly defending the filibuster, this columnist, his reason unhinged by the unconscionable filibuster against Miguel Estrada's confirmation to an appellate court, endorsed changing Senate rules to prevent such things. Now to make amends, herewith a credo:

The filibuster is an important defense of minority rights, enabling democratic government to measure and respect not merely numbers but also intensity in public controversies. Filibusters enable intense minorities to slow the governmental juggernaut. Conservatives, who do not think government is sufficiently inhibited, should cherish this blocking mechanism. And someone should puncture Republicans' current triumphalism by reminding them that someday they will again be in the minority.

This is also a good opportunity to point out an op ed in today's LA Times on the "nuclear option" contemplated by Senate conservatives to head off future filibusters.  Here's hoping cooler heads prevail and that some of those conservatives, like Will, see the danger in this strategy.

Correction of the Week

From the Washington Post:

One of the headlines on Richard Morin's Nov. 21 Outlook article on exit polling might have left a misimpression. It should have read, "Exit Polls Can't Always Predict Winners, So Don't Expect Them To," rather than, "Exit Polls Can't Predict Winners, So Don't Expect Them To."

Oh, I think rather it's the exit polls themselves that left the misimpression.  Thanks, though.

Correction of the Week II

Since the previous correction was past its sell-by date, here is a bonus Correction of the Week, from today's NYT:

A front-page article on Saturday about a decision by House and Senate negotiators to add an anti-abortion provision to a $388 billion spending bill referred incorrectly in some copies to the number of female senators who called for the measure to be changed because it had not gone through committee or to the Senate floor for a vote. It was nine, not eight.

So the purge of GOP moderates has begun in earnest, and the NYT has already stopped counting them.  Poor, forgotten Olympia Snowe, R(-for-the-moment)-ME, the lone GOP senator who signed the letter.

Correction of the Week

Yes, it's a little over a week old, but I don't want this one to slip away.  Here is an apology from David Brooks in his NYT column on November 13:

Not that it will do him much good at this point, but I owe John Kerry an apology. I recently mischaracterized some comments he made to Larry King in December 2001. I said he had embraced the decision to use Afghans to hunt down Al Qaeda at Tora Bora. He did not. I regret the error.

You can read the Daily Howler vent at Brooks, Russert and Stephanopoulos for repeating the false claim late in the campaign, and at Pelosi and the DNC for not knowing any better.

As always, please submit your favorite correction, apology and mea culpa to me.  Thanks!

Correction of the Week

From the November 15th print issue of the New Yorker:

A quotation from Amos Oz in "The Spirit Level," in the November 8th issue, should have read, "There was one-hundred-per-cent ethnic cleansing of" -- not "by" -- "the Jews in the West Bank and Gaza in 1948."