Corrections & Clarifications
Everything we have got wrong, when we got it wrong, and why.
This newspaper does not quietly edit. When a published story changes, the change is logged here with the date, the nature of the error, how it happened, and what we altered. Nothing is removed from this archive, ever. It has no paywall and it never will.
We have published 17 corrections against 383 stories. That is a rate of 4.4 per cent. A rate near zero would mean we were not checking.
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clarification caught by a reader
Custody Chain No. 1 — Six Signatures, One Of Them Impossible
The puzzle asked readers to find the one entry in a custody chain that could not have happened, and the intended answer, entry 4, stands. A reader established that entry 2 was also arguable: it has a signatory signing in the Perth registry at 16:05 and flying to Singapore the same evening, which is legal only if the registry, the drive and the check-in all cooperate. The puzzle never said where the Perth registry was. A solver could not settle the question from the page.
How it happened. The chain gave every signatory's itinerary and none of the registries' addresses. A puzzle whose answer turns on whether a journey is possible has to say where the journeys start and end; this one assumed it and did not print it. The setter checked the geography and did not check the clock.
What we changed. Every registry in this series now carries its address and its distance from the nearest airport. Custody Chain No. 2, published today, is built on that rule — one of its two impossibilities cannot be seen without it, and nobody in that entry is in the wrong place.
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editor's note caught by the subject of the story
For Two Centuries It Was Folklore. It Turned Out To Be Dirt.
A reader quoted in this story as 'a retired district nurse in her eighties' is now named as Ivy Latchford. She approved the quotation while she was alive and died on 1 August, eight days before the story appeared.
How it happened. Not an error. She was quoted the way she was described to us and we did not ask for more. Her daughter asked afterwards that she be named, which is a request this newspaper grants.
What we changed. She is named in the story, an obituary has been published, and this note records that the change was made at the family's request rather than ours.
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clarification caught by a reader
Eighteen Tonnes Of Gold Went Missing. The Scribe Blamed Nobody.
Every story about tablet PX-1207 has carried the line that eleven months of its 1974 provenance were unaccounted for. They are accounted for now: a museum deaccession sale in February, a private purchase in March, and a divorce settlement in August.
How it happened. Nothing published was wrong. It was incomplete, and this newspaper printed that it was incomplete at the foot of every story for three years, which is how it came to be closed.
What we changed. The provenance chart is reprinted without its gap. PX-1207's record is amended, the new record is filed as PX-2167, and a dated note is appended to all five stories that carried the old line.
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editor's note caught by a reader
Standards
This newspaper has changed how it writes headlines. From today a headline states the finding and stops; the qualification moves to the standfirst directly beneath it, where it is set at 1.32rem and cannot be missed. Fifty-four headlines have been rewritten and every one is logged here. The old style put the caveat in the headline itself — 'Nine Of Eleven Surveyed Buildings Have Openings Below Modern Grade. Eight Have Documented Reasons.' — which is honest, unreadable, and was being skipped by readers who then formed their impression from somewhere worse.
How it happened. A reader survey found that 71 per cent of respondents could not state what one of our front-page stories was about after reading its headline. The mean headline ran to fifteen words and, in 38 of 57 cases, contained its own rebuttal. A headline nobody finishes is not a cautious headline. It is an unread one.
What we changed. Standards clause 1 has been rewritten and clause 10b added. Mean headline length is now 9.5 words. Every rewritten headline keeps its story's qualifier in the standfirst, and the public editor has a standing veto over any headline she judges to have out-run its piece. She has used it twice already and both are noted below.
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editor's note caught by this newspaper
Second Dynasty Fell Seven Hundred Talents Short Of Its Gold Quota, Tablet Shows
This story, and thirteen others by the same reporter, described the closing line of tablet PX-1207 — 'and the fault was not with the workmen' — as a remarkable and singular sentence. It is a standard scribal closing for a shortfall return, attested 211 times in a concordance published in 1998. The stories are not withdrawn and the arithmetic in them stands; every one of them now carries a note pointing to our Null Result of 9 August, which sets out the whole of the error.
How it happened. The reporter held catalogue numbers for four comparison objects for three years without requesting them, on a colleague's word that they were lost, and did not consult a standard concordance that has been in print since 1998 and is held by the library four hundred metres from this office. The desk did not ask her for either.
What we changed. Notes added to fourteen stories. The desk now requires that any story resting on a single object cite at least one comparison object or state, in the story, that no comparison was obtained and why.
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correction caught by a source in the story
Second Dynasty Fell Seven Hundred Talents Short Of Its Gold Quota, Tablet Shows
An earlier version of this story gave the orbital period referred to in tablet PX-1207 as 3,600 years and described that figure as 'the crossing interval'. The tablet gives a figure in the accusative that is more naturally read as a regnal count, not an interval. The number is the same; what it counts is disputed. We have amended the second and ninth paragraphs and added the objection of both Assyriologists to the sources box.
How it happened. The reporter's own reading was checked by one outside scholar rather than the two our standards require, because of a deadline the desk should not have accepted.
What we changed. Paragraphs 2 and 9 rewritten; headline unchanged, because the headline did not make the disputed claim.
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clarification caught by the subject of the story
The Carrier Was Down For Forty-One Minutes. Nobody Agrees On What Changed.
This story quoted four people describing the interval as 'quiet'. Two of the four have since said they were describing the ordinary quiet of a Sunday morning and did not intend a technical meaning. We have added their clarification and removed the word from the standfirst.
How it happened. Two sources' quotations were accurate and their intended meaning was not checked back with them before publication.
What we changed. Standfirst amended; both sources' clarifications printed in full at the foot of the story.
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clarification caught by the subject of the story
Long-Period Lunar Events Ran Nine Hours Beyond Model, Compiler's Catalogue Shows
This story said the compiler of PX-1788 'declines to offer an explanation'. He does not decline; he offers several ordinary ones, and asked us to say so. The sentence has been changed to reflect that, and his preferred explanation now appears in the fourth paragraph rather than the fourteenth.
How it happened. A cut made for length removed the compiler's own explanations while leaving in a characterisation that depended on their absence.
What we changed. Paragraph 4 restored; the word 'declines' removed.
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editor's note caught by a reader
Contractor Drawings Show Six Subterranean Levels Beneath Concourse D. The Airport Says There Are Three.
Readers have asked why this story does not say what is on levels four, five and six. It does not say because we do not know, and we have added a line to that effect at the top of the piece. The drawings show that the levels are dimensioned. They do not show what is in them, and we have no source who has been in them.
How it happened. Not an error, but the story's silence on the obvious question was itself misleading by omission.
What we changed. An editor's note added at the head of the story.
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correction caught by this newspaper
Steering Committee Agenda Lists A Session On 'Public Tolerance Thresholds'
We reported that 31 names on the attendance sheet were legible. On re-examination of the original photograph at higher magnification, 29 are legible and two were transcription errors by this newspaper: one attendee's name was rendered with the wrong initial and another was a duplicate of the line above. Neither individual attended under the name we printed. We apologise to both.
How it happened. A transcription made at speed from a phone photograph, checked by one person rather than two.
What we changed. Two names removed from the published list; the list now carries the magnification at which it was read.
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correction caught by this newspaper
Half Of Sampled Sessions At One Ad Exchange Were Undeclared Non-Human Traffic
The headline on this story originally read 'Most Of The Internet Is Not Human, Audit Finds'. The audit sampled one exchange's inventory over one quarter and says nothing about the internet as a whole. The headline out-ran the story, which is the specific failure this newspaper's first standing rule exists to prevent. The headline was changed within forty minutes of publication and this note is permanent.
How it happened. A late headline written by an editor who had read the story's summary and not the story.
What we changed. Headline rewritten. The desk's headline procedure was changed: the writer of a headline must now initial that they have read the piece in full.
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clarification caught by a source in the story
One Donor Cohort Shows A Rhesus-Negative Rate Of 38.7 Per Cent. Its Own Statistician Says Not To Compare It.
Several readers took this story to be reporting an elevated rhesus-negative rate in a population. It is not. It is reporting a self-selected donor cohort, a sampling artefact, and a statistician's warning against exactly the comparison many readers made. We have moved that warning from the fourth paragraph into the standfirst.
How it happened. The story was accurate and its structure was not. Placement is an editorial decision and this one was wrong.
What we changed. Standfirst rewritten; the statistician's caveat now appears above the fold.
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correction caught by a reader
A 1977 Patent Application Was Withdrawn After An Examiner Raised The Secrecy Statute
We wrote that 'no secrecy order was issued, according to the file'. The file records that no secrecy order was issued *in this matter*; it is not a register of secrecy orders and could not show one issued elsewhere. The distinction matters and we have made it.
How it happened. Over-reading a negative in a document that was not designed to record that negative.
What we changed. Paragraph 11 amended.
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retraction caught by this newspaper
An Object In Near-Polar Orbit Answered A Transponder Check. The Object Is A Thermal Blanket.
We have retracted an assertion in this story's ninth paragraph that the returned signal contained a repeating twelve-bit sequence. It did not. The sequence was an artefact of our own reporter's recording software, which he identified himself four days after publication and reported to his editor within the hour. The paragraph has been struck through rather than deleted, and remains visible with a line through it, so readers can see what we got wrong.
How it happened. A reporter analysed a signal using consumer software without a second instrument, contrary to this newspaper's practice on any technical measurement.
What we changed. Paragraph 9 struck through and annotated. The desk now requires two independent instruments for any measurement we report as a measurement.
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correction caught by a reader
Six Months, Four Hundred Interviews: We Cannot Substantiate The Claim That Finland Does Not Exist
In listing the countries whose land borders with Finland we walked, we omitted Norway. We walked it. The omission was a production error and the reporter is blameless; the sentence was cut to fit a column and the cut was not flagged.
How it happened. A cut made in production without reference back to the desk.
What we changed. Norway restored to paragraph 6. Production now flags every cut of a factual clause back to the writing desk.
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correction caught by a reader
Nine Of Eleven Surveyed Buildings Have Openings Below Modern Grade. Eight Have Documented Reasons.
An earlier headline said 'Nine Of Eleven Buildings Are Partly Buried'. 'Buried' implies a mechanism the story does not support; the survey found openings below present grade, which is a description, not a cause. Headline amended.
How it happened. A verb chosen for the rhythm of a headline rather than for its meaning.
What we changed. Headline amended within two hours.
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editor's note caught by this newspaper
Standards
Clause 5 of our editorial standards has been revised. It previously required opinion to be 'clearly labelled'. It now specifies the label's size, colour, and position, and requires a banner at the head of every argument piece. The change follows a reader survey in which 14 per cent of respondents misidentified a signed column as reporting.
How it happened. A rule that describes an intention rather than a mechanism is not a rule.
What we changed. Standards clause 5 rewritten; the site's typography was changed to match.