With every mistake we must surely be learning
Eagle-eyed readers of the New York Times may notice today that the paper is running a correction to my article on The Beatles: Rock Band.
An article on Sunday about a new video game, Beatles: Rock Band, misattributed a comment about dreams from the book “Grapefruit,” by Yoko Ono, which compared the interactive nature of the video game to the book’s theme that art gains by being shared. It was a line within the book itself, written by Ms. Ono; it was not a blurb written for the book by John Lennon.
That this is a common mistake and, frankly, an understandable one does not make it excusable. I was alerted to my error after seeing a blogger complain about it. I contacted her for more information, checked it out further, and then let the magazine know we needed to fix it, both for accuracy and because Yoko already gets too little credit (and too much blame) as it is. That I contributed to that narrative at all is the most upsetting part to me.
I call your attention to all of this not because I'm happy that I made a mistake, of course, but rather because I know some of my readers are still confused about the proper way to respond when a blogger points out an error in your New York Times magazine cover story.
(Hmm, would it be more fun if this gets caught by his narcissistic Google Alert? Yeah, I guess so. Peter Landesman.)
Comments
That's good, but when are you going to correct the unsubstantiated claim that Beatles-themed merchandise is a $20 Billion industry?
Posted by: Vance | August 20, 2009 11:13 AM
@Vance. Those $528 pens add up fast.
Posted by: radosh | August 20, 2009 11:16 AM
I told you you were going to ream you.
Posted by: Kevin Guilfoile | August 20, 2009 1:54 PM
You should announce the demise of your blog more often. It's done wonders for your posting frequency.
Posted by: Rubrick | August 20, 2009 2:34 PM
Daniel, you lying skank.
Posted by: J.D. | August 20, 2009 2:41 PM
Very classy of you to post this, Daniel. Given the length of the NYT piece, you could be forgiven for going the self-pity route with the headline:
"Christ, You Know It Ain't Easy. You Know How Hard It Can Be"
(Quick reminder: I have posted this week's Anti-Cap Contest on my blog.)
Posted by: al in la | August 20, 2009 3:36 PM
Assumed the "$528 pen" reference was a gag ... then I clicked on the link.
Wow.
Posted by: Jim/The Velvet Blog | August 21, 2009 8:52 AM
The general consensus at fountainpennetwork.com seems to be that those Recife pens are more about form than function.
As an aside to my aside... I am not sure how, but someone on that site has posted over 9600 comments about fountain pens.
Posted by: mypalmike | August 21, 2009 10:07 PM
(FYI: Winners for Anti-Cap Contest #204 have been posted along with a note explaining my long time affinity for the Contest. I have also posted this week's contest. Click the link below to check it out.)
Posted by: al in la | August 24, 2009 6:36 AM