Every once in a while, a newspaper makes a mistake. What are we saying? They make mistakes all the time. Luckily, most papers have a policy of issuing a correction. And some, like these from the very recent past, are hilerious.
Anchorage Daily News:
“There was an error in the Dear Abby column that was published on Monday. In the fifth paragraph, the second sentence stated that Charlie’s hiccups were cured temporarily through the use of carbon monoxide. It should have read carbon dioxide.”
The Guardian (U.K.): “In our entry on Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days, we referred to A Prairie Ho Companion; we meant A Prairie Home Companion.”
The Sun (U.K.): “In my column on August 22, I suggested that Sharon Osbourne was an unemployed, drug-addled, unfit mum with a litter of feral kids. This was not intended to be taken literally. I fully accept she is none of these things and sincerely apologise to Sharon and her family for my unacceptable comments. Sorry, Sharon…”
The Amherst Citizen (Nova Scotia): “A Nov. 9 story about Nova Scotia’s black minority was accompanied by an inaccurate photograph caption. The photo, said to depict rundown houses around Dartmouth, was actually of a pig farm. The Citizen apologizes for the error.”
The Sentinel-Review (Woodstock, Ontario): “In an article in Monday’s newspaper, there may have been a misperception about why a Woodstock man is going to Afghanistan on a voluntary mission. Kevin DeClark is going to Afghanistan to gain life experience to become a police officer when he returns, not to ‘shoot guns and blow things up.’ The Sentinel-Review apologizes for any embarrassment this may have caused.”
Denver Daily News: “We would like to offer a sincere apology for a typo in Wednesday’s Town Talk regarding New Jersey’s proposal to ban smoking in automobiles. It was not the author’s intention to call New Jersey ‘Jew Jersey.’”
In 2005 a 28-year-old South Korean man died from exhaustion after playing StarCraft, an online video game, for 50 hours straight.
The Sunday Paper (Atlanta, Georgia): “An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Buffington’s special support hose as ‘mercury-lined.’ The hose are mercury-gauged, meaning that barometric mercury is used to measure the compression of the hose. They are not mercury-lined, which would, of course, make them poisonous.”
Us Weekly: “In our feature ‘Why She Left Him,’ the woman identified in the photograph as former adult-film star Ginger Lynn Allen is neither Ms. Allen nor an adult-film actress. Us regrets the error.”
The Sun (U.K.): “In an article published on The Sun’s website on January 27 under the headline ‘Gollum joker killed in live rail horror,’ we incorrectly stated that Julian Brooker, 23, of Brighton, was blown 15 feet into the air after accidentally touching a live railway line. His parents have asked us to make clear that he was not turned into a fireball, was not obsessed with the number 23, and didn’t go drinking on that date every month. Julian’s mother did not say, during or after the inquest, that her son often got on all fours creeping around their house, pretending to be Gollum from the J.R.R. Tolkien novels. We apologise for the distress this has caused Julian’s family and friends.”
Portland (Maine) Press Herald: “A story on Wednesday about foraging for edible mushrooms contained a photo of amanita muscaria, which is a poisonous and hallucinogenic mushroom. It was a copyeditor’s error.”
The Guardian: “We misspelled the word ‘misspelled’ twice, as ‘mispelled,’ in the Corrections and clarifications column on September 26, page 30.”
Iowa State Daily: “In Friday’s issue, the article ‘Decorate your dorm on the cheap’ inaccurately described furniture purchased at Goodwill and Salvation Army stores as being ‘complete with that old-urine smell.’ The Daily retracts its false statement and deeply regrets the error.”