I didn’t know Dana Reeve, but I was saddened by her death. Her strength and determination touched me.

But…

I am amazed that the mainstream media couldn’t be bothered to get her name right. Yesterday, the NYTimes.com spelled her last name “Reeve” in the headline and “Reeves” in the text in its frontpage “teaser” that linked to the main article. Likewise in their main article, since silently fixed. ABCnews.com’s article gets it wrong today. The US Newswire can’t get it right either. Neither could CBS 2, although they’ve fixed it now. The same is apparently the case with the BBC. The Daily Record in the UK manages to spell Christopher Reeve’s name correctly in one sentence and Dana Reeve’s name incorrectly in the next.

What is the mainstream media, a bunch of bloggers??

[Notes: NYTimes.com no longer has the misspelling up, but as Dan Gillmor is my witness, it was there; you can see the error in the main article by searching at Yahoo. Other misspellings courtesy of the news search facilities at Google, Yahoo and MSN. And my closing comment about bloggers was meant ironically. The real issue isn’t that the mainstream media should become perfect but that they should stop ragging on bloggers because we’re imperfect.]

Overly-scrupulous Disclosure: I am on a marketing advisory board of the Christopher Reeve Foundation. Note to the WSJ: Advisors to non-profits don’t get paid. [Tags: dana_reeve media blogging]

Categories: Uncategorized dw