This image was lost some time after publication.

Because American Idol is not merely a television show but rather a very popular television show, news about its winner has been elevated — perhaps everywhere, but certainly at the Times — from the remote precincts of the Arts section to the sober pages of the National Report, where today, for the second consecutive edition, Alessandra Stanley is given an A-section spot for her musings about cheesily overwrought TV-show singers. But you know what makes Alessandra's report today particularly compelling? That we count at least three errors.

Let's start with her first paragraph:

Nobel Prize winners are apprised in a quick telephone call. The Pulitzer committee sends telegrams.

Was there ever a time when Pulitzer winners were notified by telegrams? Maybe. But Western Union stopped sending telegrams in February, so certainly there's no present-tense way that the "Pulitzer committee sends telegrams."

Moving on to the fourth graf, we find the news that on last night's Idol finale one Michael Sandecki "impersonated, horribly, a former 'Idol' winner, Clay Aiken," who of course was famously not an Idol winner. (This has been subtly corrected online — without any correction note — but will remain wrong on page A24 of the late edition.)

And then, finally, in the next graf she misidentifies Idol contestant Elliot Yamin as "Elliot Yasmin."

Isn't it fun when she makes up for lost time?

Surprise (Well, Not Exactly)! 'American Idol' Finale Unfolds and Unfolds [NYT]