Yesterday, in a “Department of Corrections” piece, I noted that the day before I’d made an editing error, wrote “do” instead of “don’t,” and accidentally changed the entire meaning of a quote from Supervalu CEO Craig Herkert ... who, to be honest, has enough problems without me misquoting him.
However, my “Corrections” piece did not go far enough. I got the following email yesterday from MNB user Bill Welch:
Please don’t criticize J&J for a phantom recall and pontificate about transparency when you do not provide a clear explanation of the nature of your own “editing error”.
The omission of the word “don’t” turned the quote from Craig Herkert, Supervalu CEO around 180 degrees. It took me a second or third reading of the correction (comparing the two quotes) to find out what the difference was and its implication. BIG DIFFERENCE. What do you think the employees of Supervalu felt about your original mistaken quote? Maybe a simple I’m sorry.
To be clear, I did not criticize J&J - I just reported the allegations in the case.
That said...
Bill Welch is absolutely right. I should have apologized. In fact, I feel awful about it, because for the past nine-plus years, whenever I’ve goofed, I’ve tried to own up to it and apologize. For me, transparency is very important. This time, for whatever reason, I only pointed out the mistake and corrected it.
So I apologize for the original mistake. And for not apologizing to begin with. I certainly wasn’t trying to hide it, nor make light of it ... especially because I am painfully aware that people’s jobs could be at stake, and that my typos could cause some folks a great deal of consternation.
However, my “Corrections” piece did not go far enough. I got the following email yesterday from MNB user Bill Welch:
Please don’t criticize J&J for a phantom recall and pontificate about transparency when you do not provide a clear explanation of the nature of your own “editing error”.
The omission of the word “don’t” turned the quote from Craig Herkert, Supervalu CEO around 180 degrees. It took me a second or third reading of the correction (comparing the two quotes) to find out what the difference was and its implication. BIG DIFFERENCE. What do you think the employees of Supervalu felt about your original mistaken quote? Maybe a simple I’m sorry.
To be clear, I did not criticize J&J - I just reported the allegations in the case.
That said...
Bill Welch is absolutely right. I should have apologized. In fact, I feel awful about it, because for the past nine-plus years, whenever I’ve goofed, I’ve tried to own up to it and apologize. For me, transparency is very important. This time, for whatever reason, I only pointed out the mistake and corrected it.
So I apologize for the original mistake. And for not apologizing to begin with. I certainly wasn’t trying to hide it, nor make light of it ... especially because I am painfully aware that people’s jobs could be at stake, and that my typos could cause some folks a great deal of consternation.
- KC's View:
