Totally rude, totally annoying, totally what I'm doing right now.

But wait!

I have some big news that I'll be sharing here later this week. News that's only a little bit about me. It's really about online news and journalism in Canada -- and something new that's coming along very soon.

I know, the only thing more annoying than someone blogging about some silly award is them doing that and then teasing you with something that they'll blog about a few days later.

But apart from that, I'm pretty pleased to share that my column for Columbia Journalism Review is a finalist for a Mirror Award for "Best Commentary—Digital Media." Here are the four columns that were submitted:

• "Violating the 'Contract of Correction'"
• "Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong"
• "The New Great American Pastime"
• "Speed Demons"

My fellow finalists are Matthew Pressman (Vanity Fair) and Eric Alterman (Center for American Progress). Here's their excellent work:

• Eric Alterman (Center for American Progress)
  • "Think Again: Remember Real Journalism"
  • "Think Again: Mice, Playing: The Decline of Skeptical Journalism"
  • "Think Again: The End of Local Reporting?"
  • "Think Again: Conflicts of Interest by the Wealthy and for the Wealthy"
• Matthew Pressman (Vanity Fair)
  • "Why Time and Newsweek Will Never Be The Economist"
  • "Media Darwinism: Which Sites Will Survive?"
  • "A Media Guy Asks: Why Do They Hate Us?"
  • "Is Fox Business Network a Lost Cause?"

The awards will be handed out in New York on June 10 at a luncheon hosted by Katie Couric. At The Plaza Hotel. Seriously. Now can you forgive me for posting about this?

For Writer's Digest, I wrote an essay about my experience correcting errors in my book, Regret The Error. It's somewhat similar to the monologue I did for Definitely Not The Opera recently. One difference is that my WD piece offers advice to writers about preventing errors. And it includes an image of the accuracy checklist I produced earlier this year.

As for Reader's Digest, the current issue in Canada includes a lengthy excerpt from the Mafiaboy book. And Michael "Mafiaboy" Calce is on the cover. We're really thrilled about his.

I've written eight columns so far, and you can read them all here. This column is a chance for me to connect the dots and provide some context for notable corrections and errors. To give an idea of what I mean, here's an excerpt from my November 7 column:

Apologies Not Acceptable

Does The Washington Post apologize?

By Craig Silverman

The Washington Post’s correction policy has some elegant turns of phrase, including “Preventing and correcting mistakes are two sides of the coin of our realm: accuracy.” But it says nothing about apologies. Could that be because “The Washington Post doesn’t apologize”?

That quote was attributed to a Post editor in an e-mail published by the Washington City Paper this week. The email was written by David Winer, the managing partner of EatWell DC, a restaurant group in the Washington area. He sent it to members of his company’s mailing list to respond to a scathing review published in the Post. Winer also contacted the paper to raise questions about the critic’s conflict of interest. As a result, the Post published this Editor’s Note:

Critic Tom Sietsema should have recused himself from reviewing the Commissary, a restaurant featured in the Oct. 29 Food section. He and one of the restaurant’s owners had earlier had a personal relationship. The Washington Post regrets that he reviewed this restaurant, and will remove the review from its online archive.

Here’s how Winer’s e-mail described the conversation with Sietsema’s editor, Tom Shroder:

Mr. Shroder, understanding the ramifications of Mr. Sietsema’s actions offered a settlement; kill the story on the web immediately, print a retraction in Sunday’s paper, and that neither Mr. Sietsema nor any member of The Washington Post food team would ever write about any Eatwell DC restaurant again. What they would not do is apologize for the harm caused by Sietsema’s spurious comments. “The Washington Post doesn’t apologize” but “we will say we regret”.

I’m not aware of any other media organization that has a “no apologies” policy. Plenty of other newspapers have no problem apologizing. Some have even apologized for things that happened decades or even centuries in the past. But it’s true that the Post almost never apologizes.

A Nexis search turned up Post articles offering advice on how to apologize, as well as editorials and columns that judged other people’s apologies. The closest I came to a recent apology was a letter to the editor published in September of last year, written by by an op-ed contributor who wanted to apologize for an error:

I apologize to MSNBC talk-show host Joe Scarborough and to The Post for the cutting description of Mr. Scarborough in a Sept. 7 op-ed, “Guilty in the Duke Case,” by me and KC Johnson about the Duke lacrosse case. I wrote that description on the basis of transcripts of “Scarborough Country” programs early in the Duke case. My attention has since been drawn to transcripts of several subsequent programs, and I realize that Mr. Scarborough was one of the handful of journalists who deserve credit for calling attention early in the case to the emerging evidence of innocence.I am very sorry that because of insufficient research, the op-ed suggested otherwise.

STUART TAYLOR
Washington

In September, Tom Sietsema, the food critic at the center of the controversy, offered a correction and apology while doing a chat with readers on the Post’s Web site. Here’s the exchange:

Point of Correction: Jared Slipp was the GM at the late and much missed Nectar. Danny Boylen was the notable GM of Notti Bianche in the same space.Tom Sietsema: Right you are. My apologies.

But that’s not the same as an apology made by the paper. In order to find an example of the newspaper making a formal apology for an error it had committed, I had to go back to an article published on July 17, 1977. The headline was “An Apology and a Salute To 2 Pilots Named Stinson”:

Katherine Stinson is not dead, even though her photograph was prominently displayed on The Washington Post’s obituary page yesterday,” it began. “And even as The Post apologizes for its error, it salutes the achievements of both Katherine Stinson and the subject of the obituary, Katherine Stinson Otero. The two women shared not only names, but also remarkable aviation careers in a time when no one had heard of a women’s liberation movement.

That appears to be the only relatively recent example of the paper giving an apology the headline treatment, though there have been other variations on the theme. “Apologies to Monty Bessicks of Cushman & Wakefield, whose name was unrecognizably mangled in a recent column item about his job switch from Galbreath Co.,” read an August 1997 correction.

“WE WISH to correct an error in yesterday’s observations here on the consolidation that is rapidly changing the defense industry,” read a March 1994 editorial. “We should have said that it was Loral Corp. (not Martin Marietta Corp.) that bought LTV’s missile division two years ago. We got it wrong, and we apologize.”

There were a few other examples where the word apology appeared in a correction, but nothing was more recent than the 1994 editorial. And in the end, they were corrections, not apologies. So, given the example from 1977, perhaps the correct way for the editor to have described the paper’s policy would be: “The Washington Post doesn’t apologize anymore.”

This is the write-up:

Mistakes happen, especially in the media. Everyday, thousands of bonehead mistakes are printed in newspapers and magazines and go out over the airwaves, and only a tiny fraction of the errors are ever corrected. Regret the Error is the media consumer's revenge, a regularly updated compendium of media mistakes big and small. The big mistakes get plenty of coverage elsewhere — the plagiarized newspaper columns, the fabricated news sources, the memoirs that are — how shall we put this — totally made up. Regret the Error covers the big whoppers, but it really shines on highlighting the small stuff that the media gets wrong. Small, that is, unless you're the person being written about. There's a useful yearly roundup of errors, corrections, and plagiarisms, and some of that material has been compiled into a book. Read 'em and weep.

My book is out, has received some very nice reviews and media coverage, and led to me appearing on the December 23 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources program. Watch the segment below and marvel at how pale I am. Hey, it's winter in Montreal.

I've also pasted some excerpts of reviews and coverage for the book below. You can also read my latest round-up of the year in media errors and corrections on the Regret the Error website.

Selected reviews and comments:

...a winding journey through the most glaring, damaging and humorous typos, misprints, misidentifications, fuzzy numbers and obiticides in the history of journalism, from the accidental to the malicious. These chapters are chock-full of amusing historical anecdotes, including the story behind the incorrect headline Dewey Defeats Truman, the case of mistaken identity that galvanized Nobel to create his prestigious awards, and the oft-presumed dead but still living Abe Vigoda. Silverman injects plenty of humor, but mostly he is deeply concerned about the science of journalism, and at the heart of this romp is an argument for increased public participation in the news cycle. -- Publishers Weekly

The extensively researched work delves into the history of accuracy and errors in journalism, seeking answers to why errors occur, their impact on the credibility of journalism, and what can be done to both minimize mistakes and learn from them. The book connects the dots between newspaper accuracy, errors and corrections, and media credibility – and ultimately the survival of newspapers in a media-saturated world where trust and credibility are our most important assets. -- Toronto Star

“Regret the Error” is a compendium of published media corrections, many of them hilarious. But Craig Silverman, a journalist who founded the Web site RegretTheError.com, turns what could have been a sudsy little stocking stuffer into a serious study of why journalists fail so often. He also lays out a sensible, brain-driven plan for reform, starting with a “systems approach” to accuracy. -- American Journalism Review

In his new book "Regret the Error," Craig Silverman, a young Montreal journalist, explores this world of press errors and corrections big and small. He laments changes in newspaper finances and production methods that have stretched reporters and editors, and reduced the scrutiny of the printed word. -- The Oregonian

Other comments/reviews:

-"I’m now halfway through the book and am convinced it should be put in the hands of every journalist and journalism student."

-"Regret the Error works because of Silverman's incisive but good-natured voice as an advocate for old-fashioned verities like accuracy and honesty (add transparency to the stew as well)...Regret the Error is not an indictment of the media, or an apologia, but a reminder that -- in this age of instantaneous news, citizen publishing and online scoops -- getting it right still counts for something."

-"Silverman’s book also offers a series of recommendations to improve accuracy. Among his useful ideas are better training in interviewing and note-taking; accuracy checklists and a 10-minute fact-checking period before reporters turn in copy; greater use of anti-plagiarism software; increased post-publication surveys of sources to monitor accuracy; and random fact-checking of one story from each section of every issue. These are not only good ideas, they can actually be implemented in any newsroom at little or no cost."

-"Not a mere collection of gaffes, the book uses corrections as a jumping off point for a thorough and thoughtful critique of the sad state of the mainstream media in the 21st century, as well as a fascinating history of the very concept of accuracy in the press throughout the centuries."

Austin is now at work on Akoha, his latest tech start-up, and he's also blogging up a storm here. Austin has started doing interviews with folks in the Montreal tech and blogging community and he recently put me in front of the microphone. You can read the interview here. (I sent him one of my new, professional-looking headshots for the interview, but he opted instead for one that features me having way too much fun at a company holiday party from years ago. Damn you, open bar!) Give it a read, and I highly recommend Austin's blog to anyone interested in the technology/entrepreneurship/start-up scene.

Oh, and I've begun to Twitter here.

• Romenesko
• Gawker
• Fark
• USA Today
• BoingBoing
• Editor & Publisher
• The Times (UK)
• Alternet
• Daily Telegraph (UK)
• Detroit News
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Huffington Post
• Kottke.org
• Jossip
• Metafilter
• Pajamas Media
• AOL
• Daily Kos
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer

UPDATE Jan 11: Okay, I'm not going to go too crazy with the vanity links on this post, but here's a link to an interview on NPR's On the Media, and a link to an Associated Press article.

"...Obviously, you've probably heard of at least some of these sites
before, and some have thousands of registered users. But we're betting
that most of them will be new to a majority of our readers. If you've
heard of some of these, consider yourself an active Netizen. If you're
already familiar with all of them, please send us your resume because
you are truly the master."