Spelling Names

Sometimes with the Times the problem isn't so much bias but carelessness verging on incompetence. An example is in an article today about the lawyer Robert Morgenthau. It already has a correction appended stating, "An earlier version of this article's Web summary misspelled the surname of its subject. He is Robert M. Morgenthau, not Morganthau." Yet uncorrected (at least at this hour) is the assertion that Mr. Morgenthau is "now with the firm Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen & Katz." The correct spelling is Wachtell. So here the Times manages to do an article on Mr. Morgenthau and misspell both Mr. Morgenthau's name (at least in an early version of the Web summary) and the name of his law firm. Nobody's perfect (including Smartertimes), and the Times often corrects its errors, which is more than some other professions do, but even acknowledging those points, this seems a bit of a disappointing performance, spelling-wise. And if they can't get the basic stuff right, like spelling names, it raises doubts about whether they can get the more complicated stuff, like the details of decades-old murder cases or international conflicts, right.