Regret the Error

We regret the error: it’s a phrase that appears in newspapers almost daily, the standard notice that something went terribly wrong in the reporting, editing, or printing of an article. From Craig Silverman, the proprietor of www.RegretTheError.com, one of the Internet’s most popular media-related websites, comes a collection of funny, shocking, and sometimes disturbing journalistic slip-ups and corrections. On display are all types of media inaccuracy—from “fuzzy math” to “obiticide” (printing the obituary of a person very much alive and well) to complete and utter ethical lapses. While some of the errors can be laugh-out-loud funny, the book contains a sobering journey through the history of media mistakes (including the outrageous hoaxes that dominated newspapers during the circulation wars of the 19th-century) and a serious muckraking investigation of contemporary journalism’s lack of accountability to the public. It shines a spotlight on the media’s carelessness and the sometimes tragic and calamitous consequences of weak or non-existent fact checking.