NYT: Oops
December 16, 2002 2:50 PM   Subscribe

No giant sea sparrow is known to be endangered by the eating habits of goats....so quoth the NYT. Funniest correction I've seen in a while; even better than the ones in the Guardian.
posted by Vidiot (7 comments total)
 
Not "No giant sea sparrow is endangered by...", but "No giant sea sparrow is known to be...", just in case one turns up somewhere.

How quaint.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:10 PM on December 16, 2002


Other great NYT corrections:

March 11, 1975 In yesterday's issue, The New York Times did not report on riots in Milan and the subsequent murder of the lay religious reformer Erlembald. These events took place in 1075, the year given in the dateline under the nameplate on Page 1. The Times regrets both incidents.

April 7, 1995 Because of a transcription error, an article about Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato's remarks about Judge Lance A. Ito misquoted the Senator at one point. In his conversation with the radio host Don Imus, he said: "I mean, this is a disgrace. Judge Ito will be well known." He did not say, "Judge Ito with the wet nose."

October 22, 2000 An article about Ivana Trump and her spending habits misstated the number of bras she buys. It is two dozen black, two dozen beige and two dozen white, not two thousand of each.

July 14, 1985 A report misidentified the document on which John Hancock put his famous prominent signature. It was the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.

The Times is famous for its neurotic corrections policy. There's a whole book of its bizzare and sometimes humorous clarifications.
posted by gsteff at 3:24 PM on December 16, 2002


Well it has taken the Times 8 years to correct Glenn Reynolds's name:

An article on Nov. 28, 1994, about the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke and his home in Sri Lanka misstated the surname of a University of Tennessee law professor who nominated the writer that year for the Nobel Peace Prize, for his humanist approach to technology. The professor is Glenn Harlan Reynolds, not Roberts. A reader recently brought the error to The Times's attention.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 3:29 PM on December 16, 2002


The original article (abridged)
posted by inksyndicate at 3:35 PM on December 16, 2002


My all time favorite, from the New York Times March 5, 1996:

"Because of a telephone transcription error, an article yesterday ... included an erroneous description. The first sentence should have begun 'Attorney Marcia Robinson Lowry,' not 'A tiny Marcia Robinson Lowry.' (Ms. Lowry is 5 foot 7.)"
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:34 PM on December 16, 2002


So long as they block entry with the free registration required crap, I have no interest in anything they have to say. If you want to share this with us, cut and paste or keep it to yourself.
posted by Eyegore at 8:31 PM on December 16, 2002


[derail]
If you really don't wanna register once and be done with it, (to quote our fearless leader: "It takes seconds and you never have to worry about it ever again"), how hard is it to make up some plausible-sounding (yet entirely inaccurate) data? Or use one of the bogus registrations floating around; I just searched MetaTalk and found three.

sigh...it's all gonna end up in MeTa, I know it.

[/derail]
posted by Vidiot at 9:52 PM on December 16, 2002


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