Byron Calame in his web journal (http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/thepubliceditor/publiceditorswebjournal/index.html) and in his columns (Sunday New York Times op-ed pages) sometimes writes about how to get factual corrections into (or at least appended to online versions of) the newspaper ... e.g.:
Ms. Collins’ existing written policy calls for uniformly publishing corrections at the bottom of opinion columns, which leads to their being appended to the original article in nytimes.com and various electronic databases. The approach taken by Mr. Rich means that users of nytimes.com who find themselves reading the Sept. 18 column—something they now must pay to do—get no warning that it contains any error at all. As I’ve said before, I think a crucial function of a correction these days is to get the right information appended to the increasingly referenced digital versions of articles as soon as possible.
If things are out-and-out wrong(e.g., a three-order-of-magnitude error such as the one Calame mentions occurred in the 9 Sep NYT, where somebody inadvertently wrote megabyte instead of gigabyte!) then it seems legitimate to me to "edit history" and put the right words in place --- esp. since sometimes folks (or automated data-harvesters?) won't read down to the correction.
But if something is said inadroitly and the author wants to fix it, I dunno ... it depends perhaps on the importance of the changes, and who "owns" the original ... I am inclined to improve my ^zhurnal (http://zhurnaly.com) when I see something that can be significantly enhanced, and certainly to fix typos and factual errors and inadvertent insults or invasions of privacy ... and people in the Wiki world have wrestled with this sort of thing for quite a while ...
BTW, from the C-SPAN Congressional Glossary (http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/revise.htm)
Asking to Revise and Extend allows a member to add to or edit his/her floor remarks in the Congressional Record.
Making changes to the words actually spoken on the floor requires the consent of the entire House.
Revisions are limited to those that make technical or grammatical corrections.
Extensions are usually the text of articles, letters, or reports to accompany the floor statement.
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timeasmymeasure
newspaper errata & corrections
If things are out-and-out wrong (e.g., a three-order-of-magnitude error such as the one Calame mentions occurred in the 9 Sep NYT, where somebody inadvertently wrote megabyte instead of gigabyte!) then it seems legitimate to me to "edit history" and put the right words in place --- esp. since sometimes folks (or automated data-harvesters?) won't read down to the correction.
But if something is said inadroitly and the author wants to fix it, I dunno ... it depends perhaps on the importance of the changes, and who "owns" the original ... I am inclined to improve my ^zhurnal (http://zhurnaly.com) when I see something that can be significantly enhanced, and certainly to fix typos and factual errors and inadvertent insults or invasions of privacy ... and people in the Wiki world have wrestled with this sort of thing for quite a while ...
BTW, from the C-SPAN Congressional Glossary (http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/revise.htm)
- ^z -