The Toronto Star ran 366 corrections this year, according to public editor Kathy English. who also said verification is the essence of journalism and we can all do better.
Notably, the Star ran a correction in July after it ran a photo of Warren Buffett instead of Rupert Murdoch to accompany an editorial on the closure of UK newspaper News of the World, owned by Murdoch’s News Corp.
According to English “about 250” of the 366 corrections were because of assumptions or a lack of fact checking, and 68 were to correct errors in people’s names. One of those corrections was appended to a November column of English’s, she noted.
We wrote in January 2011 when English reported that the newspaper made 328 corrections in 2010, 347 corrections in 2009 and 425 corrections in 2008.
We wrote to English to ask if the corrections included online corrections and will update with any response.
UPDATE: 1/2/2012 10:50 AM EST: English told iMediaEthics by e-mail that the count is for print corrections, but the newspaper is finalizing its online corrections count this week.