Regret the Errors' Top Corrections of 2008

We all make mistakes. Journalists are only, as they say, human. But freelance journalist Craig Sliverman has successfully chronicled the mistakes and corrections in the media through his blog Regret the Error. This morning he published his list of the best corrections of 2008.

Here are some highlights:

One of the year’s most coveted awards goes to none other than Dave Barry. Here’s how the famous humor writer chose to correct a misspelling he made in a column published by the Miami Herald:

In yesterday’s column about badminton, I misspelled the name of Guatemalan player Kevin Cordon. I apologize. In my defense, I want to note that in the same column I correctly spelled Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarak, Poompat Sapkulchananart and Porntip Buranapraseatsuk. So by the time I got to Kevin Cordon, my fingers were exhausted.

Other Favorites
Slate:

In the June 20 “Culturebox,” Jonah Weiner stated that Lil Wayne was the first hip-hop artist to fantasize about eating his competition. Other rappers have contemplated consuming their rivals.

The Age:

AN ARTICLE in last week’s Sunday Age, “Born to be, um, mild — and possibly damp”, contained views about biker groups that were inserted in the editing process.
As well, the survey of motorcyclists who rode for about three hours every weekend found that many had problems emptying their bladders.

The story stated that bike riders could be “bedwetters”. The error was made during editing.

Washington Times:

Friday’s Pruden on Politics column quoted a spokesman for the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv saying the newspaper had been encouraged by the Barack Obama campaign to publish a written prayer left by Mr. Obama in Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall and retrieved by an onlooker. A second Ma’ariv spokesman and the Obama campaign dispute the first Ma’ariv spokesman’s account, and the newspaper refuses to comment further. The column also said the Obama campaign posted a video about the candidate’s visit to Jerusalem on the Internet site YouTube. The video appears to have been posted by an independent blogger who inserted a counterfeit “Paid for by Obama for America” sign-off.

New York Times:

A film review on Sept. 5 about “Save Me” confused some characters and actors. It is Mark, not Chad, who is sent to the Genesis House retreat for converting gay men to heterosexuality. (Mark is played by Chad Allen; there is no character named Chad). The hunky fellow resident is Scott (played by Robert Gant), not Ted (Stephen Lang). And it is Mark and Scott — not “Chad and Ted” — who partake of cigarettes and “furtive man-on-man action.”

The Guardian:

We said that, in the American TV drama 24, Jack Bauer, the counter-terrorism agent, resorted to electrocution to extract information. You cannot extract information from someone who has been electrocuted because they are dead (Questioning, the Jack Bauer way, page 1, April 19).

And to show that we are indeed all human, Silverman has already listed two corrections of errors he made in publishing this post!