The Times corrects an editing error!

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2016

A very peculiar newspaper:
The New York Times is a very peculiar newspaper. A few quick examples:

Yesterday's front-page report about Donald J. Trump struck us as very odd. The report began with Donald J. Trump's peculiar attack against Boeing.

By now, it seems fairly clear that Trump's fact-challenged, jumbled tweet was a flash response to criticism from Boeing's CEO. But if you read the part of the Times report which appeared on the paper's front page, you received no such impression.

Instead, Trump was profiled semi-heroically, By paragraph 3, his tweet was being compared to JFK's stand against the steel bosses way back when. Let's quote Shear and Drew, who posed as Gloss and Spun:

"For perhaps the first time since President John F. Kennedy took on the steel industry in the early 1960s, the heads of big American companies are being confronted by a leader willing to call them out directly and publicly for his policy and political aims."

Inside the paper, the reporters created a jumble all their own as they tried to paraphrase Trump's tweet and sort out the actual facts. This is a very strange newspaper. But then, what else is new?

This morning, the Times has published an astounding report by Amanda Ripley about the new Pisa scores. We'll postpone that journalistic disaster until tomorrow, noting only 1) that Ripley seems to be a virtual cult member at this point, and 2) that the Times has apparently decided to disappear the Timss and discuss the Pisa alone.

The Times is very odd. If we wanted to bait Kevin Drum, we'd blame it on high lead content in the water when the reporters and editors were young.

We could do it, but it would be wrong. (Truthfully, the Times makes us wonder. Drum has noted that lead exposure was much higher when today's adults were kids.)

The Times is a very strange paper. On Saturday, we plan to discuss one of its Book Review's amazing but revealing picks for ten best books of the year. For today, let's puzzle over a minor but fascinating point—the official correction which appeared on yesterday's op-ed page.

Initially,we were struck by the correction because the errors it corrected seemed to be so large. We were also struck by a lack of parallel construction in thecorrection, and by a murky claim we didn't understand.

Here's the correction as it appeared in yesterday morning's paper. Everybody makes mistakes, but the errors being corrected here seem to be very large—and something seems to be missing:
Correction in hard-copy New York Times, 12/7/16: Because of an editing error, an Op-Ed essay on Friday about Donald Trump's efforts to keep jobs in the United States misstated the change in auto sector employment in both the United States and Mexico between 2007 and 2015. In Mexico, jobs grew to 558,000 from 405,000, not to 675,000 from 174,000. In the United States, auto jobs declined to 762,000 from 828,000. The article also misstated the plans by Detroit car companies to invest and hire employees in Mexico. Ford and General Motors plan to invest a combined $9.1 billion and hire 12,200 more workers; Detroit car companies are not planning to invest $30 billion and hire 30,000 more workers.
The correction appears the same way on-line. Below, we'll show you the lengthier version of the correction which appears on Nexis.

Those errors seem very large. We don't know what kind of "editing error" could have produced such howlers, nor does the Times seem inclined to explain.

Beyond that, information has been omitted from the correction concerning auto jobs in the United States. Based upon the original text in last Friday's hard-copy Times, here's how that correction would have appeared had parallel construction prevailed:
Correction as it should have appeared in order to acknowledge the full sweep of the errors: Because of an editing error, an Op-Ed essay on Friday about Donald Trump’s efforts to keep jobs in the United States misstated the change in auto sector employment in both the United States and Mexico between 2007 and 2015. In Mexico, jobs grew to 558,000 from 405,000, not to 675,000 from 174,000. In the United States, auto jobs declined to 762,000 from 828,000; auto jobs did not increase to 900,000 from 828,000. The article also misstated plans by Detroit car companies in Mexico. Ford and General Motors plan to invest a combined $9.1 billion and hire 12,200 more workers; Detroit car companies are not planning to invest $30 billion and hire 30,000 more workers.
Jeez! The original piece was crammed with large mistakes. How did an editor cause that?

We were struck by the size of the errors; by the claim that an editor caused them; and by the lack of parallel construction in the correction. (The original erroneous information was included for Mexican jobs but not for jobs in the U.S.)

Then, we saw this same correction as it appears at Nexis. Two extra lines appear at the end, creating a bit of a puzzler:
Correction as it appears beneath the column on Nexis: This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the change in auto sector employment in both the United States and Mexico between 2007 and 2015. In Mexico, jobs grew to 558,000 from 405,000, not to 675,000 from 174,000. In the United States, auto jobs declined to 762,000 from 828,000. The article also misstated the plans by Detroit car companies to invest and hire employees in Mexico. Ford and General Motors plan to invest a combined $9.1 billion and hire 12,200 more workers; Detroit car companies are not planning to invest $30 billion and hire 30,000 more workers. The article also misstated the state tax incentives given to Carrier to keep 800 jobs in Indiana. Carrier was given $7 million over 10 years, not $700,000 a year.
We swear that's what it says. "Carrier was given $7 million over 10 years, not $700,000 a year!"

Presumably, the Times supplied that longer correction to Nexis, then thought better of those last two lines. For what it's worth, that final line may give a slightly false impression of what the original column said.

As it turned out, the column in question was written by Steven Rattner. He's one of the bright regular panelists with the puzzling Mika and Joe.

In closing, let's review:

Giant errors appeared in the original piece; this was attributed to "an editing error." Then, the Times began composing corrections. Chaos took over from there.

Tomorrow: The Pisa cult

12 comments:

  1. Whatever correction one chooses, it's still not clear in which country the 9.1 and 30 billions be invested.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It sounds like the journalistic equivalent of the cast from the film American Pie is running The Times. I think they should bring back an old experienced hand like Judith Miller. At least she could lie us into a war that will eventually cost us $6 trillion without getting caught in such egregious errors so quickly. With Trump coming into office they will soon be called upon to spread similar disastrous lies in a semi-convincing. They better up their game pronto!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi everyone, I'm so excited.
    My ex-boyfriend is back after a breakup,I’m extremely happy that will are living together again.
    My name is Mary Wilkie from England.
    My boyfriend of a 4yr just broke up with me and am 30 weeks pregnant.I have cried my self to sleep most of the nights and don’t seem to concentrate during lectures sometimes I stay awake almost all night thinking about him and start to cry all over again.Because of this I end up not having energy for my next day’s classes ,my attendance has dropped and am always in uni and on time.Generally he is a very nice guy ,he ended it because he said we were arguing a lot and not getting along.He is right we’ve been arguing during the pregnancy a lot .After the break up I kept ringing him and telling him I will change.I am in love with this guy and he is the best guy I have ever been with.I’m still hurt and in disbelief when he said he didn’t have any romantic feelings towards me anymore that hurt me faster than a lethal syringe.He texts me now and then mainly to check up on how am doing with the pregnancy,he is supportive with it but it’s not fair on me, him texting me as I just want to grieve the pain and not have any stress due to the pregnancy.i was really upset and i needed help, so i searched for help online and I came across a website that suggested that Dr Unity can help solve marital problems, restore broken relationships and so on. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he told me what to do and i did it then he did a spell for me. 28 hours later, my bf came to me and apologized for the wrongs he did and promise never to do it again. Ever since then, everything has returned back to normal. I and my bf are living together happily again.. All thanks to Dr Unity. If you have any problem contact Dr.Unity now and i guarantee you that he will help you.Email him at: Unityspelltemple@gmail.com ,you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348071622464 ,His website: http://unityspelltemple.yolasite.com .

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for your miracle Doctor Osemu Okpamen

    This article is dedicated to the Doctor Osemu Okpamen. I have been married with my wife for 5 years and recently she broke up with me and it hurt me deeply when she told me to leave her alone and that she does not love me anymore when i was always faithful and honest to her. I tried all the ways to get her back buying her what she wants like i always did and she still left me heart broken and she even has a new boyfriend which destroyed me even more until a friend of mine from high school directed me to this genuine spell Doctor called Osemu Okpamen. This man changed my life completely. I followed everything he told me to do and my wife came back begging for me back. I was stunned everything happened exactly like he told me. I had faith in everything he told me and everything was true. Also he was there every moment until i got my happiness back and he also provides spells that cures impotence, bareness, diseases such as HIV/AID E.T.C You can contact him via email at { Doctorokpamenspelltemple@yahoo.com } or visit his website http://www.doctorokpamenspells.com. He will help you in anything you need and quick to answer once you contact him or call me for more info +1 (914)-517-3229.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think the Times' corrections have used the term "editing errror" very, very broadly, a practice not helpful to the reader. In this case, they probably got numbers from the wrong source or perhaps misinterpreted the numbers they had. But, I think they would call either of these "editing error."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Excited my life is back My husband and I have been together for almost 11 years in October. The way we met wasn’t the best way since we both had relationships. We ended our relationships to be together (or so I thought we BOTH did). As soon as I ended up pregnant with our first baby, I find out he was cheating with his EX! My world went upside down. It was very hard for me since I was pregnant and hurt. Over the years I just kept forgiving him over and over again of not only multiple affairs, but of his accusations of me being unfaithful and disrespecting me. We now have 3 kids and I just completely felt neglected and felt low of myself. I had my own affair… It has not been easy for BOTH of us to overcome. Somehow over the last few weeks we have been working together to move on. We are now moving out of state. I love my husband and I am positive he loves me. I am going to try and show him this approach. Somehow we were already doing it! We have a better communication than we’ve had in years! We are learning how to speak calmly out feelings and concerns. It hasn’t been peachy, but I can see that we both are starting to respect eachother. We care for each other’s feelings. We have US a main priority. We aren’t taking counseling, but somehow we see that little by little we seem more comfortable with eachother. Sometimes we may notice how good it is going and may step back, but helping eachother out by holding and saying it’s ok to be happy again. I love my family. and my husband and i need to keep my marriage save with him from other women so i have to seek for a love spell to keep our marriage stronger so i contacted Dr happy who help me to keep my marriage save and secure from other women am very happy today coz my husband love me more and more like ever before, we are living as one big family again bless Dr happy for what he did to me and my husband if you need help contact him too he is real and 100% guarantee ok so email him at : happylovespell2@gmail.com call +2348133873774 about his service and web site: http://happyspelltemple.webs.com/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for your miracle Doctor Osemu Okpamen

    This article is dedicated to the Doctor Osemu Okpamen. I have been married with my wife for 5 years and recently she broke up with me and it hurt me deeply when she told me to leave her alone and that she does not love me anymore when i was always faithful and honest to her. I tried all the ways to get her back buying her what she wants like i always did and she still left me heart broken and she even has a new boyfriend which destroyed me even more until a friend of mine from high school directed me to this genuine spell Doctor called Osemu Okpamen. This man changed my life completely. I followed everything he told me to do and my wife came back begging for me back. I was stunned everything happened exactly like he told me. I had faith in everything he told me and everything was true. Also he was there every moment until i got my happiness back and he also provides spells that cures impotence, bareness, diseases such as HIV/AID E.T.C You can contact him via email at { Doctorokpamenspelltemple@yahoo.com } or visit his website http://www.doctorokpamenspells.com. He will help you in anything you need and quick to answer once you contact him or call me for more info +1 (914)-517-3229.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hello,
    I Read the article of a very great spell caster and it seems very helpful to me. I haven’t had the chance to have a proper relationship with my ex because we work together. This will be the final week or work and then I wont be around him constantly. Unfortunately, I broke one of the rules in the article and have been sleeping with him. Something I’m
    not proud of, especially since he has a girlfriend. Not to mention that she’s a girl he dated off and on for 3 years before he dated me.
    When I asked him why he kept sleeping with me even though he was in a relationship, his response was because I wanted it, and he wants me to be happy. But obviously what would make me happy would be to have him all to myself. That was when i read about dr alexzander on how he help people in saving their relationship and i was really despirate for his help. There were things in our relationship that were tough. We traveled for 4 months right in the beginning, and it was hard due to different expectations. When we returned our living situation was unstable which caused a lot of stress on my end. And when I ask why he didn’t give me a chance to make things better he said he gave
    me tons of chances. Oh, and he compared our relationship with his past. He says that things were great, and then they went bad really fast, and thats why his back with his ex. Because it at least took them years for things to get that bad. So i was very sad and disappointing and decided to contact this spell caster for help with tears running out of my
    eyes and Dr alexzander promised to make things right in my relationship and also assured me that my boyfriend is going to come back to me within 78hrs. At first i was shock and didnt believe him because i thought it was impossible to do. But i gave it a try and trusted him. Dr alexzander asked for my details and his, then guarantee me of his return. Truely my ex lover started calling me and also begging me to forgive him and that's his willing to give us a second chance, then promised me never to love any other woman apart from me. it all seem like a miracle to me till now. Dr alexzander. Words can't express how i feel right now. it been 2 month now since you casted that love spell for me and
    nothing have gone bad between us. his now caring more than ever and also the loving kind of Man i have ever wanted for myself in life. I thank you Dr alexzander for saving my relationship. Indeed you are the best. I want to use this media to share my testimony for the whole world to see and know that there is still hope in your broken relationship, No matter how bad it seems don't give up hope and also contact this man who saved my own. you can reach him through his website address http://alexzanderhightemple-com.webs.com or contact him direct with his email address alexzanderhightemple@gmail.com. I thank you dr alexzander for helping me and i will always share my testimony in every social media or place i may go to.
    (From United State Of America).
    Mrs Tracy Grilli.!
    https://tracygrilli.blogspot.com.tr

    ReplyDelete
  9. I am From UK, Dr azen is the only Dr who could ever get my HIV-AIDS cured with his healing spell, i have tried almost everything but i couldn't find any solution on my disease, despite all these happening to me, i always spend a lot to buy HIV drugs from hospital and taking some several medications but no relieve, i was just browsing on the internet when i come across a great post of !Nicole! who truly said that she was been diagnose with HIV and was healed that very week through the help of these great powerful healing spell doctor, sometime i really wonder why people called him Dr azen , i never knew it was all because of the great and perfect work that he has been doing that is causing all this. so i quickly contacted him, and he ask me some few questions and he said a thing i will never forget that any one who contacted him is always getting his or her healing in just 6 hours after doing all he ask you,so i was amazed all the time i heard that from him, so i did all things only to see that at the very day which that has left me before rush back and i becomes very strong and healthy, this disease almost kills my life all because of me, so i will to hospital to give the final test to the disease and the doctor said i am HIV negative,i am very amazed and happy about the healing Dr azen gave to me from the help of his ancient herbs But if you feel like contacting Dr azen at once you can email him now for your (azentemple@gmail.com) or what'sapp +2349038299828

    ReplyDelete
  10. I am From UK, Dr azen is the only Dr who could ever get my HIV-AIDS cured with his healing spell, i have tried almost everything but i couldn't find any solution on my disease, despite all these happening to me, i always spend a lot to buy HIV drugs from hospital and taking some several medications but no relieve, i was just browsing on the internet when i come across a great post of !Nicole! who truly said that she was been diagnose with HIV and was healed that very week through the help of these great powerful healing spell doctor, sometime i really wonder why people called him Dr azen , i never knew it was all because of the great and perfect work that he has been doing that is causing all this. so i quickly contacted him, and he ask me some few questions and he said a thing i will never forget that any one who contacted him is always getting his or her healing in just 6 hours after doing all he ask you,so i was amazed all the time i heard that from him, so i did all things only to see that at the very day which that has left me before rush back and i becomes very strong and healthy, this disease almost kills my life all because of me, so i will to hospital to give the final test to the disease and the doctor said i am HIV negative,i am very amazed and happy about the healing Dr azen gave to me from the help of his ancient herbs But if you feel like contacting Dr azen at once you can email him now for your (azentemple@gmail.com) or what'sapp +2349038299828

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am From UK, Dr azen is the only Dr who could ever get my HIV-AIDS cured with his healing spell, i have tried almost everything but i couldn't find any solution on my disease, despite all these happening to me, i always spend a lot to buy HIV drugs from hospital and taking some several medications but no relieve, i was just browsing on the internet when i come across a great post of !Nicole! who truly said that she was been diagnose with HIV and was healed that very week through the help of these great powerful healing spell doctor, sometime i really wonder why people called him Dr azen , i never knew it was all because of the great and perfect work that he has been doing that is causing all this. so i quickly contacted him, and he ask me some few questions and he said a thing i will never forget that any one who contacted him is always getting his or her healing in just 6 hours after doing all he ask you,so i was amazed all the time i heard that from him, so i did all things only to see that at the very day which that has left me before rush back and i becomes very strong and healthy, this disease almost kills my life all because of me, so i will to hospital to give the final test to the disease and the doctor said i am HIV negative,i am very amazed and happy about the healing Dr azen gave to me from the help of his ancient herbs But if you feel like contacting Dr azen at once you can email him now for your (azentemple@gmail.com) or what'sapp +2349038299828

    ReplyDelete