Coming Soon: Mistakes of The NY Times

I have news for you today about a new award-winning South Beach Hoosier feature to come, one that you can do your own variation of on your own blog if you so choose, depending upon your particular interests or longstanding bête noire.

You might recall that I hinted at something like this the other day, when telling you about the New York Times finally letting us know via their Corrections box on page 2A -but NOT in their online edition- that the name of the college campus in Coral Gables was the University of Miami and not Miami University.
(You know, the one in the state of Ohio!)

Well, I'm seriously thinking of having a regular review of NYT Corrections on my blog here, one where I can talk and ruminate about what those kind of chronic, deep-seated and engrained misunderstandings of the country, as well as its history, people and pop culture, necessarily portends for the country they're attempting to describe to its millions of readers around the world. (Definitely not good news, that's for sure.)

I say this as someone who had more than a few friends working in the Washington bureau of the New York Times on Eye Street, just two blocks from The White House.

They toiled as reporters, editors and administrators, many of whom I stood up for when necessary, when they were publicly criticized by some for what I saw as overtly political or ideological reasons that lacked a solid foundation in facts.

These were very smart and professional people, folks whom I had meals with, went to ballgames or movies with, and in some cases, I even got to know the names of their kids and spouses -and accompanying family drama.

These were the very people who often told me all sorts of crazy Times insider/bureaucracy dope that I found alternately hilarious or cringe-worthy, and also shared well-founded journalism rumors that I often wished I hadn't known in many cases. Some of them you've no doubt heard of, but most you haven't.

A select few even beat me in the NYT's NCAA tourney pool, which I participated in every year, while still others simply watched as my prescient picks like Valpo sailed thru their brackets.

But it doesn't, of course, make them or their colleagues at the paper immune to reasonable criticism, which is why over the years I've sent more than my share of letters to the Times old ombudsman, Byron Calame, for lapses that should've gotten the reporter sent down to the minors for seasoning and exiled to a small town like, well, to use a Florida reference, Appalachicola.

My first one concerned a beautifully written article regarding a very contentious court case in New York and the rulings issued by the judge. The problem was that the reporter never mentioned the actual name of the judge.

I will take a momentary pass here on the opportunity to get off on a tangent about the desperate need for the Miami Herald to join the 21st century and have a reader ombudsman, though I will mention that I found it very, very curious that in last week's Herald wire coverage of the U.S. National Swimming Championships in Indianapolis, at the beginning of the month, that the Herald sports editor let run at least two stories that NEVER mentioned the name of the venue where the championships was actually held at:
PHELPS WINS; RIVAL IS DQ'D from August 3rd and 'ANOTHER MICHAEL MOMENT' FOR PHELPS from August 2nd.
Hmmm...

South Beach Hoosier, do you mean the national championships at the Indiana University Natatorium, on the campus of IUPUI? Why yes, that one!
Does that make me parochial?
No, just protective of slights to Hoosier Nation, and disappointed that in the year 2007, such a basic aspect of the story doesn't even get mentioned and the Herald sports editor, among many others, is either too stupid or oblivious to notice it
Not that this is a new trend or anything in the Herald's sports section!

Why just today, in their sports TV listings, which as I've detailed here before, is MORE noteworthy for what they often don't include -U-M, FIU and FAU games- as for what they do include, had a Barclay's English Premier League game listed, but listed the league as "Premiere." http://www.miamiherald.com/671/story/203495.html

It was listed as 3 p.m.: English Premiere League, Reading-Chelsea, FOXESP (Spanish).

Hmmm.. that's funny, the league itself doesn't and never has spelled their name with an "e" at the end, much less on their own website, http://www.premierleague.com/page/Home/0,,12306,00.html so I guess that's just another classic case of the Herald being the Herald, facts be damned.

By the way, given the huge mistake described below regarding the ongoing case in Newark, confusing actual numbers with percentages, don't hold your breath waiting for the TV networks to make this correction about the horrendous Newark college kids murder case, as at least two of them I watched reported the wrong info last week also.
Even their mistakes are repeated!

Below: Their words, my highlighted italics.
___________________________
CORRECTIONS: FOR THE RECORD
New York Times
August 13, 2007

Correction: An article in Science Times on July 17 about the widespread distribution of "Atlas of Creation," a book with an Islamic creationist point of view, not only incorrectly identified a company involved in shipping some of the books but misstated its role and its responsiveness to questions. The company, SBS Worldwide Ltd. (not SDS Worldwide, as the article had it, and corrected in this space on July 21), says it cleared a shipment of the books through customs but had nothing to do with their further distribution in the United States. SBS Worldwide Ltd. did not return calls and e-mail messages asking about its role before the article was published because it never got any; The Times had sent the questions to the wrong company. This correction was delayed in the confusion.
___________________
Correction: For the Record
New York Times
August 11, 2007

Correction: An article on Tuesday about the challenges faced by Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark as he struggles to bring down the city's homicide rate referred incorrectly to the drop in shootings in the city over the past year. Before last weekend, when five people were shot -- four fatally -- there were 80 fewer shootings from January through July compared with the same period in 2006 -- not 80 percent fewer.
___________________
Correction: For the Record
New York Times
August 7, 2007

Correction: Because of an editing error, the "Most Popular" listing in the Most Wanted chart in Business Day yesterday, listing top sellers among re-released music CDs, misspelled the name of a singing duo. It is Simon and Garfunkel, not Simon and Garfunkle.
____________________
Corrections: For the Record
New York Times
July 26, 2007

Correction: A "What's On Tonight" television listing on Tuesday about "Into Alaska With Jeff Corwin," on the Travel Channel, referred incorrectly to Alaska. It was the 49th state admitted to the union -- not the 50th, which was Hawaii.