Alessandra Stanley is an accomplished Times reporter and one of Maureen Dowd's best friends. But she can't seem to write a television review or commentary without getting simple, basic facts wrong. Was Colbert's word "trustiness" or truthiness? Did Geraldo "nudge" a rescue worker or didn't he? "Alexa" Stewart or Alexis? Is The WB a cable or broadcast network? "All About Raymond" or Everybody Loves Raymond? The list goes on and on.

We read La Stanley's tribute to Ted Koppel in this morning's paper, and we were doubly pleased. First, because it was a nice, appropriate farewell to an esteemed and accomplished journalist, and second because the error-prone writer seemed to have made her way through a full 900 words without any obvious fuckups. Then we read TVNewser, who reminded us of this sentence in Stanley's piece:

Oh, Alessandra. We do so admire your ability to come up with new and creative factual inaccuracies week in and week out. Like in Friday's review of NBC's Poseidon Adventure remake, in which you wrote:

The rakishly obsessive Reference Tone somehow found time in the wee hours of this morning to fact-check today's Stanley effort — and, naturally, finds a fuck up:

"Since it began in 2001, 'Criminal Intent' has showcased Mr. D'Onofrio as the maddeningly sensitive, eccentric Detective Goren. The series is structured differently from the original or its sex crimes spinoff, 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.' The focus does not shift to the prosecutors partway through."
— Alessandra Stanley, "A 'Law & Order' Spinoff Acquires Some Reinforcements," NYT, Nov. 11, 2005

For the longest time, we didn't quite understand why the Times continued to let Alessandra Stanley write about television. She has paid her dues as a foreign correspondent, sure. She's been at the paper for years, fine. But, apparently, she suffers from a congenital inability to get anything about television — names, dates, facts — correct. So why, we wondered, did they allow her to continue? Then we saw last night's Colbert Report, on which host Stephen Colbert made this commentary:

Times TV critic announced today that she likes The Colbert Report, the new Daily Show spinoff in which Stephen Colbert plays a pompous talkshow host akin to Bill O'Reilly.

Have you noticed, lately, that there's been a lot less mocking of Times columnists and a lot more mocking of Times reviewers? How long before they put Alessandra Stanley behind a pay wall, do you think?

Figments of Alessandra Stanley's imagination, mostly.

• Confessions of a (granted, emergency-landing-surviving) media whore. [NYO]
• Bossman Denton cruises the Jersey Turnpike on a bathwater-powered scooter, apparently. Also, he has a large head. [NYO]
• Nonfamous writer Matt Haber's past was pillaged by adorable and now-famous writer Benjamin Kunkel, and Haber'll be damned if you don't know about it. [NYO]
• Dan Rather wants to revisit Bush National Guard story; CBS brass won't let him. We await Public Eye's take, presumably that spirited debate is a good thing. [NYP]
• A day in the life of Us editor Janice Min — in which no one cares about Britney's baby. [asap/AP]
• Geraldo won't sue Times, but his feelings are still hurt. [NYP]
• Washington Blade launches a "gay Romenesko" site. We always thought that was us. [E&P]
• Turns out, SCOTUS nominee Roberts might not hate the press as much as the Times thought. Which still doesn't mean he likes it. [NYT]
• Sly gets up off the mat. [WWD]

This article, we'd like to note, was not written by Alessandra Stanley. In fact, it's an AP item — it's comforting to know the Times just throws that shit up there without giving it a once-over first.

Tucked down at the bottom of today's Times corrections, Geraldo finally gets his day:

From its inception, we've mocked CBS News's non-opinionated, non-bloggy, non-ombudsman new ombudsman blog. But maybe we were too harsh on the Public Eye crew, joking that they'd be unveiling the behind-the-scenes workings of the CBS News programs no one watches in the first place. It turns out that they'll take a look at major media issues occurring in other outlets, too, and yesterday they weighed in on the raging did-Geraldo-nudge-someone? debate at the Times.

• Stories like the Katrina aftermath are much better in print, so long as print's still around to tell them, says print reporter David Carr. [NYT]
• Moss's mistake wasn't doing the blow. It was getting into a fight with a London tab in the first place. [IHT]
• More Dumenican yuks about the fall media offerings. Such as: In wake of TimesSelect, "the Times starts a program offering to pay online readers $49.95 a year to skim 'Metropolitan Diary items about the adorable stuff that Manhattan tots say and do on city buses to amuse the elderly and infirm. (Anticipated revenue stream: Google AdSense ads for Depends and Ensure.)" [Ad Age]
• Forthcoming Dylan documentary by Martin Scorsese shows, sadly but unsurprisingly, that reporters can be humorless nitwits. [E&P]
• Even NYT ombudsman Barney Calame says Geraldo's right and Alessandra's wrong. Big surprise. [NYT]
• It's odd, jack, to see meathead brother Oddjack in a Q&A that does not involve him insulting anyone. [PR Week]

• Kate Moss continues her downward spiral after being outed as a very pretty cokewhore. We'll always let you bang a couple lines off of our tummies, Katie darling.
• We lost our minds a bit more than usual and opened up a fancypants comments club. Shockingly, not everyone loves it.
• Times scribe Alessandra Stanley has had some accuracy problems before. But now, things seem to be getting worse much, much worse.
• The Observer suggested Daily News gossipite Lloyd Grove was on his way out, but the man issued a firm, but loving denial.
• A chunk of the Times newsroom dies a bloody death; editor Keller responds with his usual, war-torn rhetoric.
• The Wall Street Journal gave birth to a big weekend baby, which may or may not have a developmental disability.
• Speaking of the developmentally disabled, the TimesSelect premium content was one giant bumblefuck at first. We should note, however, that a kindly NYTimes.com product manager took pity on us — without us asking — and finally made ours work. Turns out we had some weird, funkly problem, but his general advice is: Log out then log back in. We hear that really fixes things.

• A television review yesterday about "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," on NBC, misstated the name of the recently incarcerated host's daughter. It is "Alexis," not "Alexa."

A Times correction, referring, natch, to a Alessandra Stanley TV review: