Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free SpeechWinner of the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism! From Craig Silverman, proprietor of www.RegretTheError.com, comes a lively journey through the history of media mistakes via a chronicle of funny, shocking, and often disturbing journalistic slip-ups. The errors—running the gamut from hilarious to tragic—include “Fuzzy Numbers” (when numbers and math undermine reporting) “Obiticide” (printing the obituary of a living person), and “Unintended Consequences” (typos and misidentifications that create a new, incorrect reality). While some of the errors are laugh-out-loud funny, the book also offers a serious investigation of contemporary journalism’s lack of accountability to the public, and a rousing call to arms for all news organizations to mend their ways and reclaim the role of the press as honest voice of the people. |
Contents
Statement of Accuracy | |
Born of a Big | |
Regrets More Than a | |
The Truth About Media Errors | |
Common Errors | |
Unreliable Sources and Malicious Reporters | |
The Lesson Not Learned | |
The Trouble with Corrections | |
The Disappearance of Newspaper Proofreading | |
The Birth and Slow Death | |
RatherGate | |
The Big Newspaper in the | |
Embracing the Lighter Side of Accuracy | |
Acknowledgments | |
