How Many Corrections Does It Take To Get Fired At 'The Times'?
At this point, New York Times star television critic Alessandra Stanley has all the credibility of a Wikipedia entry. Most of the information is probably right, but you shouldn't take anything as gospel because you never know what's real and what's just been invented by a bored 13 year-old in Iowa. Alessandra Stanley Correction Watch has gone from an evergreen subject to an old joke. Geraldo had to threaten to sue the Times to get them to correct something Stanley invented out of thin air. As a service to the human resources department at the New York Times, after the jump, we present the best (worst?) Alessandra Stanley mistakes since the last time we rounded them all up.
- Today's article, which claims that the Iraq war began in 2002, not 2003.
- Structuring an argument around the erroneous point that MSNBC calls itself "the best political team" on television, when in fact CNN makes that hubristic distinction.
- Falsely asserting that Charles Gibson has reported solely from New York, prompting a letter from ABC News Senior Vice President to Romenesko.
- Claiming that the Pulitzer Prize committee still sends telegrams to alert winners three months after Western Union stopped sending telegrams.
- Making the correction box twice in a single day for two different articles in 2006.
- Correction round-up of 2005, which includes referring to the then-most popular sitcom on television, Everybody Loves Raymond as as "All About Raymond."