At the papers I’ve worked for, the way to get a correction was to reach either the Ombudsperson or the reporter’s editor. Speaking very pragmatically, the reporter has little reason to take the time to get in a correction over his/her fact error, especially since most publications track the number of corrections each reporter has caused; conversely, an editor is in position of pursuing the point and running the correction if it’s warranted. Don’t bother the writer; contact his/her editor.Posted by mark at 9:33 pm on May 11, 2006

Here is another one of those situations in which I’ve read something in column A and that connected with something in column B and then that produced questions about some hard-to-define issue over in column C.