Yes, We Have Different Standards

Sheesh, talk about grading on a curve. Via Stephen Spruiell, Howard Kurtz discusses The Mother of All Corrections regarding Douglas Feith:

Falls Church, Va.: What do you think about The Post's correction this weekend regarding Doug Feith? Does this suck the air out of that story? How does a mistake like that (attributing quotations from Report A incorrectly to Report B) get made? Is it safe to assume that the reporter has not seen the actual report but is relying upon someone else's characterization of what it contains?

washingtonpost.com: Official's Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted (Post, Feb. 9)

Howard Kurtz: It was a serious and sloppy mistake. I don't know precisely how it happened, but the article says that The Post obtained an unclassified summary of the IG's report. The paper did correct the error the next day, not just on Page A2 but in the front-page portion of the followup story, which I thought was a classy way to handle it.

I thought it was the absolute bare minimum and possibly not even that. We get one meek paragraph in the follow-up story--a graf that doesn't even begin to chart the magnitude of the error--plus the excuse-making correction on A2 (The two reports employ similar language to characterize the activities of Feith's office etc.). I am glad, however, to see the online editors have added a link  to the novella-length correction in the Pincus follow-up.