From the National Retail Federation's daily email newsletter today:

A correction in today's Times, rectifying a shitty mistake:

So what's wrong with Alessandra Stanley? Why is the accomplished Times reporter such a error-prone disaster as TV critic? We're confused by the whole thing, so we turned to you for guidance.

Alessandra Stanley is an accomplished Times reporter and one of Maureen Dowd's best friends. But she can't seem to write a television review or commentary without getting simple, basic facts wrong. Was Colbert's word "trustiness" or truthiness? Did Geraldo "nudge" a rescue worker or didn't he? "Alexa" Stewart or Alexis? Is The WB a cable or broadcast network? "All About Raymond" or Everybody Loves Raymond? The list goes on and on.

We read La Stanley's tribute to Ted Koppel in this morning's paper, and we were doubly pleased. First, because it was a nice, appropriate farewell to an esteemed and accomplished journalist, and second because the error-prone writer seemed to have made her way through a full 900 words without any obvious fuckups. Then we read TVNewser, who reminded us of this sentence in Stanley's piece:

Oh, Alessandra. We do so admire your ability to come up with new and creative factual inaccuracies week in and week out. Like in Friday's review of NBC's Poseidon Adventure remake, in which you wrote:

Though we long ago buried our relationship with the dilapidated New York Press, apparently someone at the Times is still dutifully reading the alt-weekly (perhaps hoping for a miracle). Thus, in Patrick Healy's November 6th article, New York Press gets a mention for endorsing Democratic punching bag Ferrer — but not to the pleasure of Press editors. In their latest issue, the Press writes:

The rakishly obsessive Reference Tone somehow found time in the wee hours of this morning to fact-check today's Stanley effort — and, naturally, finds a fuck up:

"Since it began in 2001, 'Criminal Intent' has showcased Mr. D'Onofrio as the maddeningly sensitive, eccentric Detective Goren. The series is structured differently from the original or its sex crimes spinoff, 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.' The focus does not shift to the prosecutors partway through."
— Alessandra Stanley, "A 'Law & Order' Spinoff Acquires Some Reinforcements," NYT, Nov. 11, 2005

From the corrections column in today's Wall Street Journal:

For the longest time, we didn't quite understand why the Times continued to let Alessandra Stanley write about television. She has paid her dues as a foreign correspondent, sure. She's been at the paper for years, fine. But, apparently, she suffers from a congenital inability to get anything about television — names, dates, facts — correct. So why, we wondered, did they allow her to continue? Then we saw last night's Colbert Report, on which host Stephen Colbert made this commentary:

Times TV critic announced today that she likes The Colbert Report, the new Daily Show spinoff in which Stephen Colbert plays a pompous talkshow host akin to Bill O'Reilly.

• Paul Krugman shall run afoul of the new corrections policy yet again if he keeps this sort of talk up. [Chase Me Ladies]
• Attention girl in the yellow jacket: Craigslist is searching for you, and the Marines would like to recruit you. [ToTC]
• The true story behind the breakup of Paris & Paris: "Scrabble is hot." [Zulkey]
• American Apparel takes their '70s porn aesthetic and applies it to people who would've been old enough to purchase porn in the 1970's. Vague unease is an underutilized marketing tool. [Spunker]
• What the second-to-last correction here fails to explain is that while Mick Jagger did attend the London School of Economics, he actually studied Literature and History. [NYT]

From the Mailbag:

From the "Corrections & Amplifications" column in today's Journal:

We have no idea if this emailer is telling the truth, but precedent in this matter gives us no reason to doubt his tale:

Tucked down at the bottom of today's Times corrections, Geraldo finally gets his day:

Our single favorite sentence in this week's New York:

• A television review yesterday about "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," on NBC, misstated the name of the recently incarcerated host's daughter. It is "Alexis," not "Alexa."

A Times correction, referring, natch, to a Alessandra Stanley TV review: