By now, many of you know that I have a keen eye for unusual corrections in newspapers.
That’s mostly because, as a reporter for 25 years and and editor for almost 12, I lived in fear of winding up on the correction page. (It happened more often than I care to admit.)
Occasionally, I would wake up in the night and either fear or realize that I had made a mistake in a story and that it was too late to correct it. Sometimes, before going to bed, I would call the copy desk and make sure that my mind was not playing tricks on me and that I had written something the way I remembered having written it.
Then, there was one nightmarish correction — like one I’m going to tell you about — where I had to write a correction to a correction. That night, I’ll never forget, the night city editor said, “Fitz, I bet you’ll be glad to get this one behind you.”
No shit.
But it happens. It evens happens to The New York Times.
A correction that ran in The Times on page A2 yesterday was a doozy. It started out like this:
“An article on Thursday about a push to ban horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park misstated part of the name of an organization to which an upstate New York veterinarian belongs…”
After correcting the organization’s name, it went on to the more embarrassing mistake: The original story had referred to the carriages as “hansom cabs,” and that, as it turned out, is a misnomer.
As the correction noted, “…the carriages have four wheels, and therefore are not ‘hansom cabs,’ which are two-wheeled. An accompanying picture caption, as well as a subheading in some editions, and a correction in this space on Friday repeated the error about the cabs.”
So, there’s the correction to the correction. But there’s more…
The last line of the correction, in parentheses, went like this:
(A reader pointed out this inaccuracy in a letter published in The Times in 1985, but this is the first correction of numerous such references through the years.)
Think about that…The Times had referred to carriages as hansom cabs “numerous” times over the last 26 years, despite a reader’s best effort to get the paper on the right path in 1985.
Well, at least The Times was big enough to acknowledge a 26-year track record of screw-ups on the same subject.
To its credit, The Times is anal about accuracy, and that’s a good thing, isn’t it?
And one thing I can guarantee you is that Emily B. Hager, who wrote that front-page story, is now an authority on the distinction between horse-draw cabs and carriages.
Now, as I trot off to bed, I’ll leave you with what a hansom cab looks like…
And its cousin, a horse-drawn carriage…
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
In that first, handsome hansom picture, you can almost hear the mmmbopping sound it must make as it delivers “the woman” to 221 Baker Street.
For whatever it is worth, Fitz, you’re not remembered as the Star Reporter who made mistakes. ‘Evens’ I make mistakes.
Pat
“That’s mostly because, as a reporter for 25 years and and editor for almost 12, I lived in fear of winding up on the correction page. (It happened more often than I care to admit.)”
Can you spot the mistake in the paragraph above?
Correction: In the last paragraph of the above story, JimmyC misspelled wrote “horse-draw cabs and carriages,” when it should have been “horse-drawn cabs and carriages.”
JimmyC regrets the error and is firing the entire copy desk. (I really didn’t check their qualifications very well when I pulled them in off the streets outside the midtown Home Depot.)
Good column, Fitz! When I was at the Star I also dreaded getting on the correction page, and having that correction noted in the “Casey Gram,” the daily critique that was put out by newsroom stalwart Donald “Casey” Jones.
Besides noting fact errors, Casey would frequently comment on proper grammar and phraseology. For example, he would say “It’s a ‘grocery,’ not a ‘grocery store.’/”
Casey also would hold forth on the correct meaning of the phrase “lion’s share.” So let me put this question to you, Fitz: If a reporter made the “lion’s share” of mistakes in the paper, would that mean most of the errors or all of the errors?
If only Numero Uno and Le Deux shared your passion for accuracy and detail.
During the time I lived in NYC most tourists and some locals always called them HANDSOME CABS.
As for the use and abuse of the English language; which is correct in jornalistic circles is one “in hospital” or “in the hospital”? If the latter than why would one not be “at the work” or “in the school”?
Hmmm. You’ve got me there, Julius. WWCS? That is What Would Casey Say?
I loved Casey in many ways, including the fact that he hired me. One of the reasons he hired me, I’m convinced, is that I read the New Yorker. (He would ask every prospective hire what periodicals they read.)
He told me a year or so before he died that I was “one of the good hires.” That made me feel good. At the same time, he drove nearly all of us crazy with the Casey Gram. I remember that shortly before firing Casey, Art Brisbane told me that having Casey critique the paper was “like having a jackhammer in the newsroom.”
May he rest in peace. There’ll never be another like him.
Jim:
I never realized Art Brisbane fired Casey. I always thought he simply retired.
News to me.
Laura
Most definitely, Laura. Casey was gone before the retirement announcement was out. Art put a note up on the bulletin board announcing it and saying that Casey didn’t want a sheet cake, pizza or any of the other customary, going-away trimmings. If you don’t get a sheet cake, you’ve been fired.