Post Mistakes Fictional Japanese Warlord for Real One
Welcome to my moon base, Speaker Gingrich
Ohhh Post. Lots of corrections for articles in yesterday’s edition, including one for an article about Occupy DC. The reporter quoted a protester as saying that Occupy is focused on confrontation, while she actually said the media coverage of Occupy has focused on confrontation.
But the best correction of the day comes from reporter Stephanie McCrummen’s story on Newt Gingrich’s Florida campaign. Take it away, Corrections:
A Jan. 30 Page One article about Newt Gingrich referred to the Republican presidential candidate as a student of, among others, the Japanese samurai warlord Toranaga. It should have noted that Toranaga is a fictional character in the James Clavell novel ‘Shogun.”
Wha? In the original version of the story, McCrummen describes Gingrich’s political approach as warrior-like. Where did he learn that style? Why, he’s:
a student of the Japanese samurai warlord Toranaga, the Turkish revolutionary Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, among others.
Newt Gingrich, a student of British politicians Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, and Cornelius Fudge…
Related: McCrummen also caught a correction for referring to Richard Nixon’s impeachment, which, as students of history like Gingrich will recall, never actually happened. It’s hard to blame McCrummen for that, per se, since it feels like hair-splitting, but no one in the Post editorial chain could have caught it? This was an A1 story.
