This photo of a chinchilla on a friend's Facebook page brought back memories of one of the best corrections, at least in my career.It was made in the coverage of an important trial in the early 1980s in Little Rock. I think the trial was on creationism. A reporter "called in" the story, i.e., called the newsroom and dictated the story to a clerk. The reporter quoted state Attorney General Steve Clark saying there wasn't a scintilla of evidence of something. The clerk, who wasn't familiar with that word, typed "chinchilla" instead. The next day, the Arkansas Democrat had to run a correction that Clark had made no reference to the small, furry beast.
Another great correction came in 1989, when the St. Petersburg Times wrote:
A drawing of the lunar eclipse in Wednesday's Times may have given the impression that the sun revolves around Earth, right. Earth, of course, revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around Earth.With good humor, the Times mentions this occasionally when rounding up other hilarious mistakes. May we all correct our mistakes as quickly and as fully as possible.