Wednesday 3 November 2010

Now *this* is an apology and correction

We're sorry for claiming Captain Kirk was in command of Captain Picard's starship
YESTERDAY, a news.com.au article incorrectly stated that the Star Trek starship USS Enterprise-E, otherwise known as model NNC-1701-E, was the successor to Captain Kirk's original USS Enterprise.

It has since been brought to our attention that the NNC-1701-E in fact came two models after Captain Kirk retired and was under the command of Captain Jean Luc Picard.

Read the original, poorly-researched article here

User "Your Mum's Lunch" led the charge of those who correctly pointed out that after losing the original Enterprise to the Klingons, Captain Kirk was given the Excelsior Class Enterprise-B as a stop-gap measure until the refit of the Enterprise-A was completed.

Kirk's last ship was the Ambassador Class Enterprise-C.

Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E were in fact, the first of the Galaxy Class models and were under the command of Captain Picard.....
...
News.com.au apologises unreservedly for the error.

There was no intention whatsoever to suggest Captain Kirk may have commanded the Galaxy Class Starships Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E.

Any damage to the Star Trek brand incurred by the use of the term "hyperspace" is regretful.

No malice was intended and a correction to the original article will be made.
Now if only news organisations would apply the same diligence about corrections in less serious stuff...

5 comments:

Buck said...

Sloppiness is rampant in the mainstream press and getting worse. Look at the 'correction'. They get the hull registration number wrong. It isn't 'NNC' it is 'NCC'.

Yes, it's trivial but if one can't get the fundamental facts correct, the conclusion can't be very good, can it?

Not that things like facts, logic or conclusions matter much anymore. It's all about portraying a story of some kind.

RadarGrrl said...

I have issues with our own CBC up here. Whenever there's a story about the Canadian Forces, our national broadcaster seems to like to use incorrect short forms for our ranks, usually American ones...things like Lt. Col. for LCol, Pvt for Pte or Master Corp. for MCpl. I just watched it happen again, with CAS as a guest on 'Politics and Power' discussing the F35, with the subtitles referring to him as Lt. Gen. Deschamps.

This irritates me, and when I'm asked my I should worry about such a trivial thing, my response is along the lines of 'If they can't be bothered to pay attention to this simple detail, how can they be trusted to get anything else right?'

This rank thing is certainly not limited to the Ceeb either...it seems to happen a lot in Canadian media.

Anonymous said...

Capt Kirk retired from the Enterprise A (which was actually the second Enterprise he commanded). Enterprise B and C were commanded by Capts other than Kirk or Picard. Picard Commanded D - E.

Anonymous said...

LMAO. So Haynes have brought out a manual for the USS Enterprise? Cool but they're a little behind the power curve - I've had a Technical Manual with full blow up detail for about 10+ years now.

Got your ping, Vasiliy :-), thanks, I have lost my password ... bah, CJ xx

Zoe Brain said...

I have too. And the medical manual.