In our item yesterday on writer Neal Pollack's idiotic ramblings on his child-rearing process, we forgot to refer to Mr. Pollack as "alternadouche." (We were distracted by someone in our office, quitting her jobs.) Boy do we regret the error.

A concerned reader wrote us about our earlier post on Plan B. Apparently, we somehow misidentified the category of babykiller the pill falls under: "Pro-lifers love that the media continually get this wrong! Plan B is emergency contraception, not an abortifacient." Yes, of course! Rather than murdering a defenseless human being, with a beating heart and developed feelings and adorable little fingers and toes, Plan B actually prevents that little miracle of God from fully fertilizing its intended target. Sounds like a lot less fun than the outright destruction of a unique human soul, but, hey, however you pro-death types like to get your kicks is fine with us. Anyway, Gawker regrets the error. And the loss of life.

Today's Page Six stumbles when it should have scooped: "Sightings: Maxim Deputy Editor Chris Wilson howling out a Monkees song with N.Y. Observer writer George Gurley, followed by fellow Observer scribe Spencer Morgan and his girlfriend, Vanity Fair fashion editrix Alexis Stewart, belting out Heart's "Magic Man" at Sing Sing." So close! Alexis Stewart is Martha Stewart's crazy daughter. Spencer Morgan is dating Alexis Bryan. Shelby Bryan's daughter. You know, Vogue editor Anna Wintour's lover Shelby Bryan? Crazy, right? (Sort of better than Spencer's boss Jared Kushner dating Ivanka Trump even.) Please God, let them have children together and make Anna Wintour a grandmother at the same time as Colonel Potter becomes a great-grandfather!

Slate's media scold Jack Shafer gets to abuse newspapers today by writing about a new study that found that fewer than 2% of stories with errors got corrected in a group of ten metro daily newspapers. This is where we jump up and down and yell "One of us, one of us!" Can we put the bogeyman of how those stupid blogs are error-ridden and never correct anything in a shallow grave now? (Actually maybe let's see how the rest of today goes here before we start gloating. Feeling kind of over-caffeinated and error-ridden already! Might print anything!)

"An article on Thursday about the arraignment of three men in the shooting of two New York police officers, one of whom died, misstated the schedule set by a judge for a trial in the case. The trial is expected to begin by February, not by 'Feb. 30.' The error occurred when an editor saw the symbol '— 30 —' typed at the bottom of the reporter's article and combined it with the last word, 'February.' It is actually a notation that journalists have used through the years to denote the end of an article. Although many no longer use it or even know what it means, some journalists continue to debate its origin. A popular theory is that it was a sign-off code developed by telegraph operators. Another tale is that reporters began signing their articles with '30' to demand a living wage of $30 per week. Most dictionaries still include the symbol in the definition of thirty, noting that it means 'conclusion' or 'end of a news story.'" [NYT]

The New York Times—both in this article and as like, individual people, at least in a few recent interactions we've had with staffers there—thinks that use of the strike tag (you know, this one) is "an ironic function... a witty way of simultaneously commenting on your prose as you create it." What total horsepucky! Sure there's a time and place for dumb strike-through jokes, or not—but really those who use it, as we do, do so to leave a record of an original inaccurate statement while adding something accurate. To regard the actual best possible system of making corrections, to cast transparency and responsibility as silliness or bitchiness, completely misses the opportunities of the internet. [NYT]

"Because of an editing error, a report in the 'Arts, Briefly' column yesterday, about an Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest in Key West, Fla., misstated the title of a novel that Hemingway wrote when he lived there. It is 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' not 'From Whom the Bell Tolls.'" [NYT]

• Southampton Press, owned by entirely nutty Joseph Louchheim, begets East Hampton Press; East Hampton Star not thrilled. We say: If there are two places to read crime reports about dumb girls named Amy Kline who miss the last train back to the city and call the police, who then actually call and get them a bus back to town instead of telling them to sleep on the street, we're thrilled. [NYT]
  

Earlier today, in briefly discussing the brainstorming session that produced the concept for sure-to-be runaway hit The Great American Singing Bee (i.e., "Horowitz 'came to me and said, "Two words: Singing bee," ' Gurin said. 'I said, "Bingo," and we began developing it.'") [Ed.note—Yeah, we're still not sure we get it.], we jokingly mentioned that a gameshow-crazed NBC was also developing a complementary, bingo-themed project. A helpful tipster quickly reminded us that rival ABC's best alternative programming minds were already way ahead of us (and NBC) on this one. Behold the upcoming National Bingo Night, or as it will soon be popularly known as per our previous flight of supposed fancy, People Shouting At A Fucking Huge Cage Full of Numbered Ping-Pong Balls

Big trouble at the New York Times Magazine this morning, as an editors' note reveals that one of the women who appeared in last week's cover story on female Iraq veterans never served in Iraq and might have made up much of what she told reporter Sara Corbett in her interview.

What happens when gods start sinning and angels fall? That's the question raised in today's issue of the Times Magazine, in which Randy Cohen, the once infallible man better known as The Ethicist, admits to accidentally Robert Novak-ing a creative writing professor in the Feb. 25th edition of his column. Apparently Wendy Rawlings, who teaches scribble skills at the University of Alabama, didn't want her name disclosed when she asked Cohen whether her colleague had been wrong to submit a student's short story to a fiction anthology without receiving the student's permission. It's the first correction Cohen's had to run in eight long years of Ethicizing, and as it happens, it's a double whammy.

A letter to Romenesko, sent to us as well, by ABC News Senior Vice President Jeffrey W. Schneider begins: "There are glaring errors in Alessandra Stanley's column today." At this point there's little more to do than shrug one's shoulders and mutter the Hebrew from the Passover question. We're not sure how something like this could have happened!

Tough morning for former New York Times, current Portfolio, reporter Kurt Eichenwald. This morning brings an extraordinary yet difficult-to-parse Times editors' note about his famous kiddie cam-whore story from December, 2005. We already knew that Eichenwald took a while to identify himself as a reporter, so as not to spook the wee one. But now the Times says that after the reporter finally met tiny-hustler Justin Berry in person, he cut him a check for $2000. (That's like, 20 times the rate Justin charged to pose for pictures in his underwear!) What's odd is that it's never made clear why Eichenwald sent the cash, which was later repaid by a family member. For starters, wasn't the whole point of the story that the kid was raking it in?

An art review yesterday about a Tintoretto exhibition at the Prado in Madrid misstated the number of paintings in it. There are more than four dozen, not "around three dozen." The review also referred incorrectly to a necklace of pearls scattered in a painting depicting Lucretia struggling against Tarquin. It symbolizes Lucretia's lost chastity, not virginity.

Best Times correction ever?

Last year's long New Yorker article about Wikipedia relied heavily on a Wikipedia contributor and administrator who goes by the handle of "Essjay." He had been recommended to the writer by Wikipedia management, and his bio described him as "a tenured professor of religion at a private university" with "a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law." Unfortunately, it turns out that Essjay is actually 24-year-old Ryan Jordan, a gent who has no advanced degrees and has never taught canon law or anything else.

Jordan has lately been hired by Wikia, the for-profit incarnation of Wikipedia, and continues to hold his Wikipedia administrative positions. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has no problem with any of this, saying he regarded the Essjay persona and bio as a "pseudonym" (he even appointed Essjay/Jordan to Wikipedia's arbitration committee last week). Wales has shown a casual attitude toward altering one's own biography in the past, but this seems a little much. Further revisions may make everything okay, however!

A front-page article on Monday about the resurging residential real estate market in parts of New York City misstated the surname of a woman who has not been able to find a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan for less than $750,000. She is Katalin Total Fucking Incompetent Muttonhead Who Isn't Bright Enough To Look For An Apartment Without A Minder And Is Probably Someone Who Should Be Forced To Move To Brooklyn So The Rest Of Us Don't Have To Think About Her Again, not Katalin Shavely. (Go to Article)

Yesterday, we charitably declined to take New York Times T.V. chick Alessandra Stanley to task for screwing up Lost plotlines. Seriously, we watched that shit last night and already this morning we can't explain why Sawyer was getting all sand-in-the-Vaseline with Jack on the beach. Oh wait. Maybe that was the creepy slash fic we "found" late last night. But no charity could stop this morning's Times from bonking Lady Stanley with her third correction of 2007.

A couple of great corrections from the Times this morning. First up, the easy target:

• Maria Bartiromo: too palsy with her subjects. [NYT]