Regret the Error cover

”…a winding journey through the most glaring, damaging and humorous typos, misprints, misidentifications, fuzzy numbers and obiticides in the history of journalism, from the accidental to the malicious.” — Publishers Weekly

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 editor of www.RegretTheError.com, the definitive media errors ancd corrections website, 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.

Includes a foreword by Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine.com

Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Union Square Press/Penguin Group (Canada)
Language: English