Assault Newspaper Disarmed

James Taranto on “A doozy of a correction from the Chicago Tribune:”

The latest innovation in defensive journalism comes from the high-capacity magazine Time, which has developed a method of preventing this column from highlighting its errors in our “Other Than That, the Story Was Accurate” feature. On Jan. 8, the magazine published a 3,000-word article about the “privilege problem” at Britain’s elite Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Later that day, it appended a correction that began: “This article has been changed.” They weren’t kidding. With additional correction added two days later, the bottom of the article now features a single forbidding correction paragraph that runs (according to Microsoft Word) 545 words in all. It would be amusing to quote in its entirety, but it also would risk exceeding fair use and violating Time’s copyright. So we are forced to ignore it. Touché, Time.

This week the Chicago Tribune tried the same trick, publishing a 526-word correction, signed by the delightfully named Joe Knowles, an associate managing editor, and titled “More Detail on Assault Weapon Graphic Correction.” Since the subject matter is of interest to this columnist, we shall not ignore the Trib’s correction. But since it too is too long to quote in full, we’ll have to subject it to withering analytical scrutiny instead.

You know what to do next…

Related: “Dana Loesch invites Piers Morgan to joy ride on a tank.” If CNN’s producers were smart, they’d dispatch Morton Downey Morgan and a camera crew and make this happen.

Well, so much for that idea.