From Editor & Publisher.com :
New Book Sees The Errors In Their Ways
By Joe Strupp
Published: November 09, 2007 1:50 PM ET
NEW YORK It all started, interestingly enough, on July 4, 2004, of all dates, when journalist Craig Silverman spotted what remains one of the broadest newspaper corrections ever.
The Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, apparently trying to make up for decades of forgotten coverage, printed this two-sentence note: "It has come to the editor's attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission."
As short and powerful as that correction was, it was also mildly amusing, says Silverman, a Canadian-based writer and freelancer. The experience began what for him has become a regular practice of finding and posting on his Web site, "Regrettheerror. com," which features the best, worst, and funniest of each day's corrections, clarifications, and editor's notes.
About three months after the Lexington correction ran, Silverman used it as the first item on his site, which has become a regular stop for those who want to see how journalists are going about admitting their errors.
After three years of compiling and noting such news-related apologies, Silverman has produced a book on the subject. "Regret The Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute The Press And Imperil Free Speech" (Union Square Press) offers 300 of his top finds over the years, along with a serious look at how the industry's lack of accuracy and failure to address mistakes has hurt the business. It includes a foreword by journalism critic Jeff Jarvis.
"There is actually a huge body of research about accuracy out there, but few people in the industry know about it," Silverman tells E&P, citing studies as far back as 1936. "There are a lot of important insights that are ignored." Among his findings: only about 2% of factual errors in newspapers and other publications are ever corrected. "There is a river of errors flowing out of newspapers," he contends, citing increased workload and a hesitancy by journalists to admit errors for fear of criticism. "There are a lot of these issues that are ignored."
But the book is not all doom and gloom; Silverman praises the art of correction writing and makes clear that the best ones offer a mix of humor, writing style, and clarity. He has a whole section on "obitocide" -- false reports of untimely deaths.
And he does not ignore the venerable typo, citing The Dallas Morning News for referring to a local woman as a "socialist" instead of a "socialite" and the Ottawa Citizen describing a "a little seedy store" which was in reality a "little CD store."
Among his many favorites:
"A headline in Monday's Daily News, 'He regrets his role in postal vid,' implied that Richard Marino, the subject of a YouTube video, was sorry for an incident in December at a Brooklyn post office. Marino, in fact, is not sorry. The News regrets the error." -- Daily News, New York.
An article about Scott McDaniel "misstated the nature of his disabilities. McDaniel is legally blind, and although he has other disabilities, he and his parents say he is not mentally disabled." -- The Washington Post.
Silverman says of his admiration for the well-written correction: "There has to be an art to it, because you have usually 50 to 100 words, sometimes just one sentence. It is a serious issue, but because there is so much humor in writing them, it is okay to embrace the humor."
The author credits British tabloids with some of the funniest and most sensational errors and corrections. Among their most notable:
"The Nazi law prohibiting Jews marrying aliens, mentioned in the Writ Large column, Page 13, June 12, banned marriages with Aryans, not aliens." — The Guardian.
"Mr. Smith said in court, 'I am terribly sorry. I have a dull life and I suddenly wanted to break way.' He did not say, as we reported erroneously, 'I have a dull wife and I suddenly wanted to break away.' We apologize to Mr. Smith and to Mrs. Smith." -- Daily Mail.
But Silverman does not excuse himself from the correction demand, offering a special form at the end of the book that readers can use to send him notices of his own mistakes. He also plans to place a similar form on his Web site.
Even with the problems associated with mistakes and the minimal percentage of corrections, Silverman still describes them as "undeniably enjoyable content."
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Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.
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