Israeli police, Arabs clash near Jerusalem mosque

The compound is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, where many believe the Jewish Temple stood until it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

My 10 year old niece and I were working on a homework assignment yesterday. We saw the original MSNBC article (crediting Reuters for some of the reporting) with the astonishing phrase that “many people believe” that Temple Mount was the home of the ancient temple in Jerusalem.

When the article was “updated” at 2:15 PM, this phrase was curiously removed. Even more interesting was when we found the Reuters version of the article wherein it states, “The compound is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, where the two destroyed biblical temples once stood.” This is a pretty radically different sentence than “many people believe….” and makes it clear that the existence of the biblical temples on this precise spot is a historical fact.

How does this happen? Was it a MSNBC editorial decision to change the phrasing in their original post (and then quickly retreat when they realized they had egg on their faces)?

Allyn

The “many people believe” phrase was included in our original version of the story, but we removed it from the later update you found.

We normally write that Jews revere the Temple Mount as the site of two destroyed Biblical temples: GBU Editor

A Palestinian woman shouts at Israeli police during clashes in Jerusalem’s Old City October 25, 2009.  REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

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Honduras talks start, police disperse protesters

Foreign ministers and the head of the Organization of American States are overseeing the highest-level dialogue in the coffee-growing nation since Zelaya was bundled into exile at gunpoint three months ago, but a solution to the crisis seemed distant.

In your article today, I believe your comment about Honduras being a coffee growing nation was a veiled slander that typically reads ¨Banana republic¨.

Your comments are gratuitous and your reporting is sloppy and shallow. Reuters can do better.

Gene

Perhaps you are reading too much into this. I believe when we said “coffee-growing nation” we meant that Honduras is a nation that grows coffee: GBU Editor

Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya reads bible before meeting with Organization of American States Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza and OAS chancellors inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, October 7, 2009. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

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Chicago go out in first round of 2016 Olympics voting
COPENHAGEN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Chicago were eliminated after the first round of voting for the 2016 Olympics host city.

Correct grammer would be Chiicago WAS eliminated. The grammer in the headline is also atrocious: “Chicago go out…” What does that mean?

Please watch what you publish, running a grammer checker would probably have eliminated both of those errors.

Michael C.

For quite some time now I have been referencing Reuters’ website for news updates because of your quality and accuracy in reporting. Understandably the occasional error slips through - not a big deal.

However, your current article(s) on the failed Chicago Olympic bid are (or should be) an embarrasment. Clearly the products of a lazy reporter and editor using a prewritten template, the news items with their repeated errors in grammar show both a lack of concern for us as readers and for your own reputation.

A deadline rush is no excuse. Shame on you.

Coyote

Shame on us, indeed. Understandably, we took a hit on this one. The fact that one of these readers misspelled grammar and the other misspelled embarrassment doesn’t excuse our poor writing and editing: GBU Editor

International Olympic Committee President, Jacques Rogge, holds a card with the name of Rio de Janeiro, chosen as the city to host the 2016 Olympic Games, during the 121st IOC session in Copenhagen October 2, 2009. REUTERS/Charles Dharapak/Pool

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New York’s September 11 museum to play martyrdom tapes

But former New York Governor George Pataki canceled the Freedom Center after critics, including survivors and relatives of the nearly 3,000 who died, said the museum should instead be dedicated exclusively to the day known as 9/11 and the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trace Center.

As an example of what will be included, Daniels said the 1979 invasion of the Soviet Union by Afghanistan was vital in understanding “the roots of Al Qaeda.”

I would expect better editing that this:
1) “…World Trace Center.”
2) “…Daniels said the 1979 invasion of the Soviet Union by Afghanistan…”

Wentzel

So, the big bully Afghanistan invaded the poor little Soviet Union, and we’ve had nothing but trouble ever since. How about a recasting as: “. . . the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union…?

Joseph S.

Since when did Afghanistan invade the Soviet Union in ‘79?

Mr. Mac

This was a very troubled story. We had to withdraw the original version, and then go back in with another correction. Not our finest hour: GBU Editor

Afghan children in the Panjsher valley December 9 play on a gutted Russian tank which was destroyed by mujahideen guerrillas during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1978. REUTERS/Sayed Salahuddin

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Nigeria to hunt down Islamic radicals, president

Nigeria wants to hunt down its president? Heh. That headline is quite amusing.

J.F.P.

Sigh. We subsequently replaced the comma with a dash: GBU Editor

Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua attends prayers celebrating the end of Ramadan in the capital Abuja, September 29, 2008.REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

Alcohol kills over half of Russians in prime-study

MOSCOW, June 26 (Reuters) - Cheap and illicit alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years and the government must act urgently to reverse the trend, a study to be published in The Lancet at the weekend said.

“Excessive alcohol consumption in Russia, particularly by men, has in several recent years caused more than half of all the deaths at ages of 15-54 years,” the Lancet article said.

Both your lead paragraph and your headline have the same error.

Alcohol does not kill half of all Russians in their most productive years. Rather, half of all deaths of Russians in their most productive years are killed by alcohol.

That’s a very important difference. Half of all deaths is a number in the hundreds of thousands; which is very high to be sure. If your paragraph were accurate than tens of millions of Russians would be dying.

M.A.K.

Yes. The story later makes clear what we meant, but the headline and lead are indeed misleading: GBU Editor

A man drinks antiseptic alcohol on a street in central Moscow in a 2006 file photo. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

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Israel to build 50 new homes at West Bank settlement

News of the planned building work emerged hours before Defense Minister Ehud Barak left for the United States for talks aimed at narrowing a rift with Washington over settlements.

He will meet President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in New York on Tuesday, Barak’s office said.

A goal of the Israeli-U.S. negotiations is “advancing a process for a comprehensive regional settlement in the Middle East,” Barak’s office quoted him as saying in a statement.

Since when is it appropriate to call an international figure and national leader by their first name? “Barak’s office said.” “Barak left open the possibility of a limited, temporary…” “Barak has also spoken of couching a Palestinian deal…”

And people wonder why print journalism is a dying profession.

Stigler

I think you’re a little confused here. The second paragraph made a clear reference to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Barak is his surname, and is spelled differently from Barack, so it should be possible to keep them straight in the story: GBU Editor

Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak (R) meets U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell in New York, June 30, 2009. REUTERS/Jamie Fine

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ArcelorMittal says delays Liberia iron ore mine

ArcelorMittal is a key investor in the poor former British colony, whose President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has made attracting foreign investment into its natural resources a centrepiece of her efforts to rebuild the country after a 1989-2003 civil war.

Liberia was not a former British colony. Please correct your reporter’s mistake in this story.

M.K.

We should be better than that at our history. We corrected the reference: GBU Editor

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC, April 16, 2009.
REUTERS/Larry Downing

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Pelosi in public dispute with CIA over interrogation

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - The top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday got into a public dispute with the CIA over what she knew about harsh interrogation techniques in 2002 in the latest twist in a Washington political firestorm.

I logged into your news site to find information concerning Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the CIA controversy.

It is not every day that an elected member of our Congress calls the entire deparment of the Central Intelligence Agency liars. You don’t even have it covered as a subject… Anywhere. Are you serious? Do you not consider it newsworthy?

I have always thought of you as a balanced organization, but if you are not writing about it because you were TOLD not to….

Mr. Y.

It’s interesting that you would rather think we were “told” not to write about this, instead of the far more obvious explanation that we simply we not the first ones with the story.

We beat our competition with a lot of breaking news, but it would be unsportsmanlike to do it with every story. Indeed, our first version moved online within minutes of your query, and we updated it several times that day with fresh information: GBU Editor

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, leaves 10 Downing Street after meeting with Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in London May 12, 2009. REUTERS/Stephen Hird

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Implications of Japan opposition leader quitting

Former party leader Katsuya Okada, often cited as a frontrunner, has in the past favoured a hike in the three percent sales tax to fund bulging social security costs, a move Ozawa had ruled out for now.

I’d like to report a factual error.  Your article mentions a ”hike in the three percent sales tax to fund bulging social security costs.”

In fact Japan’s sales tax is currently five percent.

C. A.

Yes. We corrected: GBU Editor

Japanese opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa attends a news conference at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Japan in Tokyo, May 11, 2009. Japanese opposition leader Ozawa told his party on Monday he will resign to try to restore the party’s prospects in a looming election, after a fundraising scandal dampened its hopes for victory.  REUTERS/Issei Kato

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