My favourite annual round-up is missing

Launched in 2004, regrettheerror.com was a wonderful source of entertainment. Craig Silverman, who started it, moved on to bigger and better things, and Poynter took over the annual round-up that celebrated the art and craft of the correction. Since 2004, of course, the whole enterprise has graduated from lets keep the record straight and have a bit of fun to what Poynter calls the “sysiphean task" of fact checking, and keeping the facts checked.

You debunk a falsehood about something like chemical spraying helicopters in Italy only to see it pop up again in Ireland or France. Some of the details have changed, but the structure remains the same, and worse yet the repetition of the falsehood makes it easier for people to believe.

Poynter’s newsletter about fact-checking is currently “paused”.

A later site launched by Silverman, Emergent, offers real-time tracking of rumours, helpfully offering buttons that allow you to quickly spread a claim, even ones that have been shown to be false. Rumours that it is on life support must remain unverified for now, although its tumblog does appear to have been in a coma since March 2016, just when you might have thought it would be gaining real traction.

And I am still looking for an annual list of the best corrections around.