There have been some good ones but I think this gets the nod for my favorite Thinklings post so far this year.

I liked it, but I think the motive behind it and many similar "corrections" is what we accountants call "false precision".

If you read financial reports of large companies, you will see they are usually reported with all numbers rounded to the nearest million dollars (or billion), rather than all the way down to the dollar or even penny. Why? Well, one reason is because they are obviously easier to read rounded off. However, another reason is to avoid giving the reader a sense of "false precision". Accounting uses all sorts of cutoffs and estimates such that saying you have everything measured to the absolute accurate penny is never true. Therefore, issuing financial reports that show numbers like $15,434,233.12, will create a impression of preciseness in reader's minds that is false.

The New York Times are not in the accounting business, so they like creating the impression with corrections like this that they are committed to 100% accuracy, such that even the smallest and most immaterial errors are corrected. The truth is that their reporting is even more based on estimates, guesses, biases, and often factual inaccuracies.

I think it's important to get your facts straight.

Period.

Thanks, Bill! :-)