1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

ESPN corrections

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by jakewriter82, Jun 10, 2007.

  1. jakewriter82

    jakewriter82 Active Member

    So I was glancing over the ESPN corrections page on its website recently, and at the bottom I noticed this:

    2005 NBA champions

    April 10, 2007 5:26 PM
    In an April 9 story on ESPN TV, a SportsCenter graphic said the Phoenix Suns won the 2005 NBA title. The San Antonio Spurs won the NBA title that season.


    Here's the rest of them if you care to view:
    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/corrections

    My apologies if this has already been covered on a different thread. It happened in April but I just noticed it on their corrections page today.
     
  2. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Bill France Jr. photo

    June 4, 2007 6:21 PM
    On June 4, a photo on ESPN.com's NASCAR home page was incorrectly identified as Bill France Jr., due to inaccurate information provided by Wireimage, an ESPN.com photo supplier. It was actually of NASCAR president Mike Helton.
     
  3. Bad form to blame the supplier since 95% of the readers don't give a shit who Wireimage is.
     
  4. chazp

    chazp Active Member

    0
    Agreed, papers don't run corrections and blame another party. They take the blame themselves. A third party may have provided the photo, but someone at ESPN should have checked it.
     
  5. reformedhack

    reformedhack Well-Known Member

    Hate to disagree, but newspapers do this all the time when incorrect material is provided by reputable sources or services. In these circumstances, it's fair to explain how and why your organization got it wrong. It's perfectly acceptable to run a correction that says something along the lines of "Because of incorrect information provided ...".

    Transparency goes a long way. Not only does it allow you to save a little bit of face, but it also enables your readers to see that you didn't err out of negligence or stupidity.

    Doesn't excuse what happened at ESPN, of course, but it does explain it.

    P.S. -- Enjoyed your avatar.
     
  6. chazp

    chazp Active Member

    Maybe I don't pay enough attention to corrections, but I've never read one that blamed a source. But if you have, I've learned something.
     
  7. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    I have no problem blaming a source in a correction, if it truly is the source's fault and there was no way to fact check the information. Otherwise, it is on the newspaper.
    In this instance by ESPN, someone should have caught the fact the picture wasn't of Bill France.
     
  8. kleeda

    kleeda Active Member

    Somebody did, literally two minutes after it was posted. That was how long it was on the site.
     
  9. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    Interesting. I'm surprised they ran a correction then.
    How does it work with Web sites and corrections? If you can just fix the error, do you really need to do a correction? It isn't like in print, where the error is immortalized.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page