David Hayes (London, openDemocracy): No one ever went bankrupt making a bet on the likelihood of finding obvious errors every day in the British print media. By the same token, everyone who works at a fast pace in the area of global current-affairs analysis and commentary knows that perfect accuracy is a professional commitment that in practice cannot always be met.
A publication's engine-room thus deserves from the outside a modicum of generous understanding to match the discipline within. But with this qualification, it is striking to see the sheer number of routine mistakes that get into print each day - and here, the standards seem if anything looser in the "serious" press than the tabloids.
This past weekend alone, even a cursory reading found Ayaan "Hirshi" Ali (three times) in Charles Moore's diary in the Spectator; Bertie "Aherne" in Paul Bew's review of Roy Foster's new book in the same magazine; Jonathan "Freeland" in the Independent; the Northumbrian village of "Banburgh" in this sad, beautiful, memoir in the Guardian; and John "Erlichman" in John Pilger's encomium to Michael Moore in the New Statesman.
All remain uncorrected in the website versions at the time of writing.
Now, in the spirit of "there but for the grace of God", back to the engine-room...
