Corrections: For the Record
In NYT's June 23, 2005 Corrections
For the record, it's prob coz reporters find it so easy to just rehash bits from their old stories when providing backgrounder for progressing stories. If the error isn't caught by the news editor and it slips by the sub, in all likelihood it'd be repeated over and over again (wasting precious column inches that can be put to better use for good design). Until a haughty more-vigilant-than-thou reader points it out, as was usually the case.
At the freesheet from which I've happily parted ways, during the days when I was an oppressed sub, it wasn't uncommon to come across whole chunks just copied and pasted by the lazy reporter (one in particular; name withheld) that had run the day before, word for word. And one feels obliged to reword it for the lazy reporter, for the sake of the paper, so readers will not go, 'Fark la, what shit is this? Repeating exactly what you said yesterday.'
It makes you wanna roll your eyes... And then I remember, fark la! Already left that damned place. Let 'em rot.
Several articles early this year about a Navy submarine that crashed into an undersea mountain in the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 8 misstated the precise location. It was just north of the Equator, not in the South Pacific. The error appeared on Jan. 11, 12, 15 and 23, Feb. 12 and March 13. The location, first classified, was later specified by the Navy as 7 degrees 44.7 minutes north latitude and 147 degrees 11.6 minutes east longitude.
In that same page:
An article on Jan. 25 about a guilty plea by Leonard F. Pickell Jr., former president of the James Beard Foundation, to a charge of grand larceny misstated the year he became president. (The error also appeared in articles on Dec. 14 and Dec. 16, 2004, and Sept. 20, 2004.) Mr. Pickell took office in 1995, not 1994. The error came to light during the editing of a recent article on the case.
For the record, it's prob coz reporters find it so easy to just rehash bits from their old stories when providing backgrounder for progressing stories. If the error isn't caught by the news editor and it slips by the sub, in all likelihood it'd be repeated over and over again (wasting precious column inches that can be put to better use for good design). Until a haughty more-vigilant-than-thou reader points it out, as was usually the case.
At the freesheet from which I've happily parted ways, during the days when I was an oppressed sub, it wasn't uncommon to come across whole chunks just copied and pasted by the lazy reporter (one in particular; name withheld) that had run the day before, word for word. And one feels obliged to reword it for the lazy reporter, for the sake of the paper, so readers will not go, 'Fark la, what shit is this? Repeating exactly what you said yesterday.'
It makes you wanna roll your eyes... And then I remember, fark la! Already left that damned place. Let 'em rot.
'Write Louder!' she says with one raised eyebrow at 9:39 AM
