COMM 207, 337, 386, 393: Classy correction!

We all screw up from time to time, and sooner or later we all do it in print.

So we run a correction.

Here's an especially deft correction in "The Fix," Chris Cillizza's blog on the WashingtonPost.com website for ... political junkies. A lot of the time the idea is to take your medicine and get it down quickly, a graf on page 2 saying the city budget -- or whatever -- was reported incorrectly, and giving the correct figure, followed by a tag that says "The Daily Bugtussle (or whatever) regrets the error." This one goes above and beyond the formula.

Cillizza starts by repeating the incorrect information:

Today in our "Monday Fix" column, we reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was going up with ads in the Maine Senate race -- a sign, we argued, that Sen. Susan Collins (R) might be in real trouble.

We were flat wrong.

Note the short graf. Short is effective. Normally you don't repeat the mistake, but here Cillizza does because he's going to explain why he was wrong in the next graf:

The NRSC did buy time on Friday in the Portland, Maine media market, a move that when we learned of it, led us to conclude that the committee was set to go on television in support of Collins.

What we failed to realize (dumbly) is that the Portland, Maine media market also reaches into parts of New Hampshire where Sen. John Sununu (R) is fighting for his political life against former governor Jeanne Shaheen.

The time the NRSC bought in Portland then was for the New Hampshire race NOT the Maine race. It's a rookie mistake and one that we simply should not make.

Cillizza goes on in this vein for two or three grafs more and concludes, "We truly regret the error." And as a reader, I believe him.