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Comment by tsegratis | Hacker News Reader

Can we have all newspapers do this?

I imagine few would be as honest as this

I imagine many would be, so long as sufficient time had passed. If you’re apologising for a 20 year old mistake, the person who made that mistake probably left the newspaper a while ago. You don’t have to interact awkwardly with them. Nor are they in a position of power from where they can prevent the apology from being printed.

The NYT once published a hilarious apology 49 years after they made a mistake. The original author was long gone by then.

> A Correction: On Jan. 13, 1920, "Topics of the Times," an editorial-page feature of The New York Times, dismissed the notion that a rocket could function in a vacuum and commented on the ideas of Robert H. Goddard, the rocket pioneer, as follows:

> 'That Professor Goddard with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

> Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th Century and it is now definitely established a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.

The only exception I’m aware of personally is the Economist consistently apologising for supporting the Iraq war in the 2000s, and continuing to do so every time the decision to enter the war is mentioned. This from 2018, 15 years after the war started

> Iraq, in other words, is doing well. Some will argue that this justifies America’s invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein (which we supported). It does not. Too much blood was shed along the way in Iraq and elsewhere. (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/03/28/fifteen-years-a...)

> 49 years

It seems that it took humans landing on a Moon to make them realize rockets can actually work in space.

There's realising a mistake, and there's finding an appropriate moment to make an unambiguous and highly-visible mea culpa.

It seems far more probable that this is a case of the latter, not the former.

That's not an apology, that's disclosure. If they didn't add that you would get a stream of people saying "which you supported" everytime they talk about the war.

Saying "we were wrong" is an apology in my book. I don't know what you want, but this is sufficient for me. If you think your reading experience would be improved by grovelling, find the publication that grovels or has never ever made a mistake and read that. But for me, I'm ok with the Economist.

> If they didn't add that you would get a stream of people

A stream of people where? Only subscribers read this. Folks who have issues like you do wouldn't be subscribers to begin with. If they hadn't printed the mea culpa, few would have noticed.

I am constantly seeing references in The Economist to things they've changed their mind about. Often the wording is something like this: It was often claimed (including by this newspapers) that ... However, ...

The KC Star apologized for its past racist coverage last year: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/22/949271163/the-kc-star-apologi...

Even this seems pretty dishonest, when all the entries are from before the time when many of the Guardian's current staff were not alive.

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