From Regret the Error, here's a list of the worst (and most amusing) slip-ups the media made in 2008... at least until they make some more in the next three weeks, of course...
The first thing we gotta ask is, why does anyone report (as news) the story that a certain person has herpes? And even if that's a wise move, to publicly shame someone for no reason, it still doesn't explain why they'd publish a story about a nobody like David Guest having the STD. Guest, it was claimed, had received the disease from Liza Minnelli as an unintended wedding present. Of course, it's totally fabricated, as the Daily Mail and other papers were forced to admit in print:
In articles published on 23 and 26 May 2008, we gave the impression
that Mr Gest had contracted a sexually transmitted infection and
alleged that he had Liza Minnelli’s dog killed without her knowledge.
This was wrong. David Gest has never had a sexually transmitted infection and did not have Ms Minnelli’s dog killed.
We apologise to Mr Gest for any embarrassment caused.
Isn't this like LBJ saying, Yes, it's untrue what I said about my opponent, "but make the bastard deny it"? In other words, maybe a few people missed it the first time-- a retraction only reinforces the public awareness of the possibility of the story's truth, as in when you phrase a denial as "No, I did not do that horrible thing," psychologically, many people think, "Hmm, 'horrible thing.' Wonder if he did it."
Ah, never mind, we can't explain it. Just read more:
Here’s how the famous humor writer [Dave Barry] chose to correct a misspelling he made in a column published by the Miami Herald:
In yesterday’s column about badminton, I misspelled the
name of Guatemalan player Kevin Cordon. I apologize. In my defense, I
want to note that in the same column I correctly spelled Prapawadee
Jaroenrattanatarak, Poompat Sapkulchananart and Porntip
Buranapraseatsuk. So by the time I got to Kevin Cordon, my fingers were
exhausted.
Wonder if he spelled "Cordon" with an "n" and an "m." These and more via Regret the Error.
Related:
