Misidentified Black Person of the Week

After the death last week of Joe Hunter – an esteemed Motown studio musician – the Reuters news service misidentified him in a group picture, and had to correct it.

Ever notice how often black folks get misidentified in newspaper and magazine photo captions? I mean famous black folks. A lot more famous than Joe Hunter.

In last month’s James Brown tribute issue of Rolling Stone magazine, there’s a photo on page 48 with this caption: “Brown with Sharpton in 1974.” But the man seated next to J.B. isn’t the Rev. Al Sharpton; it’s trombonist Fred Wesley. (Sharpton told his radio talk-show audience: “It ain’t me.”)

Never mind Rev. Al’s overexposed mug; Fred Wesley is one of the great musicians, arrangers and bandleaders in funk and soul music going back 35 years. The editors of Rolling Stone oughta know what the man looks like!

I brought this up on a comment page two weeks ago. Now I’d like to stretch out on the topic.

Reuters distributed a photo of the female stars of “Grey’s Anatomy” at the Golden Globes last month. The caption identified the black woman standing in the middle, holding the trophy, as “writer Shonda Rhimes.” Wrong. It was actress Chandra Wilson. Reuters issued a correction.

On the reader feedback page at Reuters.com, someone asked: “Whoever thought Chandra Wilson looks like the creator of Grey's Anatomy Shonda Rhimes? For one, Shonda Rhimes the creator is taller and she wore black.”

“Several readers noticed this one,” the editor posted in response. “We corrected.” (“Several” noticed, huh? Chandra Wilson is only watched by, like, 24 million viewers a week!)

Such misidentification can occur within the body of a story. The Associated Press moved the following correction on January 6: “In a Jan. 3 story about the death of former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, The Associated Press misidentified a singer who appeared in a concert in Jerusalem to mark Israel's 30th Independence Day. The singer was Leontyne Price, not Lena Horne.”

Sometimes it happens in the story and in the photo caption. Check out this double-whammy of a correction published in the New York Times on November 6, 2004:

“A review of the concert film ‘Fade to Black’ in Weekend yesterday misidentified a star appearing in the film with the rapper Jay-Z. She was Foxy Brown, not Lil' Kim. Because of an editing error, a picture caption misidentified the singer dressed all in white. He was R. Kelly, not Jay-Z.”

(Jay-Z, Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim were born and raised in New York City. The Times is their hometown paper!)

I have observed this phenomenon first-hand. In the late 1980s, as a feature writer for the Washington Times, I wrote a piece about a cable-TV movie, and I’d interviewed its star, Avery Brooks. Insight magazine reprinted the story, and ran a photo of co-star Samuel L. Jackson over the caption “Avery Brooks.” Imagine my embarrassment.

I confronted an editor about this, and she kind of laughed it off. I don’t think Insight even bothered to run a correction. At that point, Sam Jackson wasn't the movie star he is today. But black folks in D.C. were seriously digging Avery Brooks as Hawk on “Spenser: For Hire.” So any black person who picked up that magazine and saw that error probably felt a little pinprick of insult. “Guess they think we all look alike.”

That’s what’s so amusing and/or annoying about this phenomenon. It links to that old racist trope of “they all look alike.” And I simply can’t imagine the media so frequently misidentifying white people of similar status (nor can I find evidence of it).

Here’s a correction the Washington Post published last year: “In some Nov. 8 editions, a photo caption with a Style article misidentified Massachusetts Gov.-elect Deval Patrick as Senate candidate Harold E. Ford Jr. of Tennessee.”

That was in the Washington Post, which prides itself on its coverage of politics.

Sometimes you can see how a mix-up occurred. Like last February, when a Cleveland Browns fan magazine mislabeled a picture of Eric Metcalf as “Terry Metcalf” (Eric’s father).

Sometimes there's just no freakin' clue. Like with this printed correction from 2005: “The Washington Times yesterday inadvertently published a photograph of D.C. City Administrator Robert C. Bobb misidentified as the late soul singer Marvin Gaye.”

Blogger Anil Dash took note of this phenomenon in 2002, citing one AP photo caption that misidentified Chris Tucker as Chris Rock, and another that confused actor DeAngelo Wilson with soul singer D’Angelo.

This may happen to Chris Rock a lot. The Philadelphia Inquirer last May ran the following correction: “Steven Rea’s ‘On Movies’ column... incorrectly referred to Chris Rock as the star of the movie Block Party. The movie starred Dave Chappelle.” (Hat-tip to Craig Silverman at Regret the Error.)

“Could it just be coincidence? Yeah, I guess,” Anil Dash blogged. “But it’s all over the place. Most photo corrections are spelling fixes, but then you get things like Scottie Pippen being misidentified. At the very least, it’s a sign of a remarkable lack of cultural literacy amongst this group of photojournalists.”

Well, I’m starting up a database. I want to get a sense of just how often this happens. So, please, anyone who comes across a well-known black person misidentified in a photo caption (or in the text of a news story), let me know via email. If you see any well-known whites misidentified, I'd like to know that too. For comparison's sake.

MBP of the Week: Chicago Tribune (again)

You won’t believe this one. Boy, it has been a bad month for the Chicago Tribune.

I take that back. It’s been a super-shitty month for Tribune sportswriter Lew Freedman.

One week ago, I pointed out how the Trib published a long feature about ex-NBA player Kevin Gamble, but ran a file photo of Dee Brown (one of Gamble’s old Boston Celtic teammates) misidentified as Gamble.

That story was written by Lew Freedman.

Yesterday, the Trib published another feature story by Lew Freedman, this one about DePaul University baller Marcus Heard (above bottom). The headline read: “Demons’ Heard makes grade.” It was all about how Marcus Heard is a good student and a good citizen, on top of being a good athlete.

Freedman quoted Heard’s coach, Jerry Wainright, who said: “He's a great study of a young man who's pushing the envelope. … I love Marcus Heard. He opens doors for people. He says thank you.”

Freedman even quoted Heard’s mama, who said: “With Marcus, it was never if he was going to go to college, it was always when. He is very serious about his school.”

Nice story. Very nice. Only one problem…

Yes. Amazingly, the Chicago Tribune did it again, running a picture of Heard’s Blue Demon teammate Wilson Chandler (above top) misidentified as Heard.

Today, the Trib ran this correction: “On Page 3 of Tuesday’s Sports section, an incorrect photo appeared with a story on DePaul's Marcus Heard. The photo showed Wilson Chandler instead of Heard. Here is a photo of Heard.”

Well, that fixes that.

I emailed Lew Freedman this morning, introduced myself, and asked a few questions. Such as: Whose fault was this? Who screwed up? (Assignment editor? Copy editor? Photo editor?) Did you take any steps after the Kevin Gamble mix-up to ensure that such a thing never happened again? Will you try to do so now? Can you describe your feelings concerning these mistakes? Embarrassment, I suppose (even though they weren’t your fault)? Did you call Gamble and Marcus Heard yourself to apologize on behalf of your newspaper?

And so forth.

Freedman emailed me back to say he passed my questions up the chain of command to his boss, Dan McGrath.

If I don’t hear back from Mr. McGrath – and I haven’t yet – I won’t be surprised. Not because of my lowly status as a neophyte blogger. But because McGrath is probably still red-faced (literally) over a whopper of a Misidentified Black Person that occurred last summer.

In that case, McGrath himself wrote the 12-paragraph correction that appeared in the Trib. Here’s what happened:

A former NBA player named Eddie Johnson was arrested last August in Florida, charged with sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl. Alas, there are two former NBA players named Eddie Johnson. The other one is now a broadcaster in Phoenix. That one – the one not charged with child sexual assault – grew up in Chicago and played ball at the University of Illinois. Which gave the Tribune’s editors a reason (so they thought) to pick up the Associated Press report on Eddie Johnson’s arrest.

The Trib didn’t run a picture (thank God), but it misidentified Eddie Johnson by inserting wrong information into the AP’s account. To wit, this headline: “Former NBA, Illini star accused of sexual assault.”

The Eddie Johnson who got arrested wasn’t an Illini; he played his college ball at Auburn University.

So sports editor Dan McGrath addressed the matter on August 10, 2006, under the headline “An apology to Chicago’s Eddie Johnson.”

“Factual errors erode a paper’s credibility,” McGrath began. “We made an inadvertent but hurtful error Tuesday night in an effort to get as much news as possible into Wednesday’s final edition of the Tribune sports section, and we would like to apologize to Eddie Johnson, his family and friends, and our readers.

“An Associated Press story detailing the arrest of ‘former NBA All-Star Eddie Johnson’ moved across the wire late Tuesday, and a decision was made to get it into the ‘Press Box’ segment of the sports section, where our sports briefs go.

“In Chicago, former NBA star Eddie Johnson means Eddie Johnson, 47, a 6-foot-7-inch forward from Westinghouse High School and the University of Illinois, the Eddie Johnson who went on to a 17-year pro career with seven NBA teams. The Eddie Johnson who was distinguished as much by good citizenship and charity work as by 19,202 career points….

“Unfortunately, the man arrested Tuesday was ‘the other’ Eddie Johnson, 51, a 6-2 guard from Auburn who had a 10-year career with three NBA teams and has been in and out of trouble with the law since he quit playing in 1987. …”

McGrath then bent over backwards to proclaim: “Anyone who knows or has had even limited contact with Chicago’s Eddie Johnson would find it unfathomable that he would be linked to such behavior” as sexual battery.

“For the record,” McGrath continued, “Chicago’s Eddie Johnson remains extensively involved in charity work, including motivational speaking and basketball clinics for kids. In addition to his broadcasting duties, he is president of a Phoenix telecommunications firm. He got his degree from Illinois in 1981, and he was and is regarded as one of the NBA’s model citizens.”

McGrath’s apology ends with this quote from Eddie Johnson himself: “It has been a tough day, but I appreciate you trying to set the record straight.”

Johnson might sound forgiving in that quote, but he expressed his hurt to the East Valley Tribune, a Phoenix-area newspaper, when the mistake hit the streets.

“This is why athletes have so many problems with the media,” Johnson told the Arizona paper. “They don’t do their homework. They don’t bother to check facts before they write things…. I’m sitting here dumbfounded because 47 years of building a reputation is being destroyed in one morning by something I had nothing to do with. I’ve been getting nasty emails all morning. It’s a nightmare.”

Getting back to the Chicago Tribune’s latest fuck-up, it occurs to me that the number of MBPs could be drastically reduced if newspapers simply stopped covering the sport of basketball. It may be the only way.

Recently, in the space of two weeks, the San Francisco Chronicle misidentified three different college or high-school basketball players in photo captions. All were black. Here are the Chronicle’s corrections:

“In Thursday’s Sporting Green, a photo of Cal women’s basketball player Keanna Levy was published with an article about her teammate Ashley Walker.” – January 26, 2007

“In Sunday’s Sporting Green, a caption for a photograph from the men’s basketball game between Stanford and Cal misidentified a Stanford player covering Cal’s Ayinde Ubaka. The player was Fred Washington.” – February 5, 2007

“A photo caption in Wednesday’s Sporting Green misidentified a Wallenberg High basketball player. Chibuzo Emeka is the athlete shooting the layup.” – February 8, 2007

I guess this bullshit happens in threes. So Dan McGrath, you know what that means? Time to buy some fucking eye drops, dude!

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR: No, I’m not done yet with this round of MBPs. These next two will amuse and/or annoy any soul music fan.

The Hartford Courant ran this correction on February 16: “Singer Eddie LeVert was a member of the O’Jays, not the Temptations, as was incorrectly stated in a CD review on Page 6 of Thursday’s Cal section.”

(By the way, it should be spelled “Levert.”)

And the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted this correction on its website yesterday: “ ‘This Old Heart of Mine’ was recorded by the Isley Brothers. It was incorrectly attributed to the Temptations in a Rod Stewart concert review published online on Feb. 18, 2007.”

THE GRAVE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU: Finally, I wasn’t familiar with this gentleman because I’m not into the blues. But the Los Angeles Times ran this correction on February 14: “An obituary of guitarist and musician Eric von Schmidt that appeared in Monday’s California section misidentified blues guitarist Blind Boy Fuller as Blind Dog Fuller.”

Ain’t that a bitch?

Grammy night is MBP night!

Yes, the Grammy Awards are tonight, right here in L.A. I’m not big into the Grammys. I stopped keeping up with new music a dozen years ago.

But one thing has me excited: My absolute certainty that the media coverage will include at least one embarrassing MBP (Misidentified Black Person).

No public event so taxes the ability of photographers and photo editors to tell black people apart. This music-industry love fest has gotta be somebody’s worst nightmare. Oh crap… Which one’s Chamillionaire and which one’s Krayzie Bone?

The Los Angeles Times screwed the pooch at last year’s Grammys, and had to run the following correction:

“In some editions of Thursday’s Times, the caption on a front-page photograph of musicians performing a tribute to New Orleans at the Grammy Awards misidentified the singer on the far left as Allen Toussaint. Toussaint did perform in the finale, but the musician shown was Sam Moore” of Sam and Dave.

Here are my guesses for tonight’s most-likely-to-be-misidentified black people:

Jermaine Dupri

Rihanna

Maurice White

Ornette Coleman

Wyclef Jean

Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong.

UPDATE (02/13/07): I’ll give credit where it’s due. The mainstream media did a great job telling all those black people apart at the Grammy Awards.

The only Misidentified Black Person I found in the aftermath was on MSN’s TV Filter blog. There, in the text of her review, blogger “Kim” misidentified Chris Brown (the singer) as T.I. (the rapper).

Here is Kim’s corrected paragraph:

“Other highlights: Chris Brown, who outshined both Smokey Robinson and Lionel Richie during their ‘three generations’ performance.”

She made the fix after “Adora” posted this comment:

“It was CHRIS BROWN who outshined Smokey Robinson and Lionel Richie in their ‘three generations’ performance. T.I. was the one who did the Rap-Sung with Justin Timberlake and the new singer chosen by voters.”

Kim commented back: “[T]hanks for the correx Adora, though I thought T.I. was good too.”

I tip my hat to Stephen J. Dubner at the Freakonomics blog. He linked to my original MBP post, and Adora posted a comment which pointed me to TV Filter’s mistake.

Misidentified Black People (cont'd)

You don’t think it happens a lot? You think I’m just trippin’?

Well, quite by coincidence, my friend “ShyOneLung” encountered this phenomenon while watching basketball on TNT last night! She blogged thusly:

“Just in time for Black History Month, TNT featured an interview with new Pistons forward Chris Webber’ s ‘father,’ Mayce Webber, all about how Chris is making the transition to playing for his hometown team since signing with Detroit a couple weeks back. Nothing wrong with that, you say. Well, it is when the guy [Craig] Sager interviewed wasn’t Webber’s father, but his (I believe) AAU coach. Oops, wrong black man.”

Goodness. Will my MBP database need to include television as well?

Maybe so. Because one year ago, during live coverage of Coretta Scott King’s funeral, Malcolm X’s eldest daughter Attallah Shabazz was misidentified on TV screens as “Malaak” (one of Malcolm’s youngest daughters). This mistake was pointed out by blogger Kim Pearson and by the Black World Today news site.

I offer big thanks to Canadian journalist Craig Silverman, who catalogs all kinds of media screw-ups on his naughty-fun blog, Regret the Error. He emailed a few beauties for my fledgling database. Like this December 15, 2006, correction in the Bergen County Record:

“In some Wednesday editions, a photo that ran on A-10 was misidentified as Harriet Tubman. The photograph was of Mary Ann Shadd Cary.”

And this August 21, 2006, correction in New York’s Daily News:

“Monday’s Divas piece credited the wrong rapper with an appearance on Beyonce’s new single. It’s Jay-Z, not Nelly. The latter appears on Janet Jackson’s single.”

Silverman also documented my new all-time favorite MBP on February 6, 2006, from the pages of the Chicago Tribune:

“On the back page of Thursday’s Sports section, a photo of Serena Williams with members of the group Destiny’s Child was misidentified as Beyonce Knowles.”

Finally, it seems this phenomenon reaches all the way to the White House. Here’s an Associated Press item from June 16, 2006:

“In the self-blame department, White House spokesman Tony Snow had a political doozy.

“ ‘I apologize for being an idiot,’ Snow said Thursday during his daily briefing to the news media. ‘I misidentified Representative Sheila Jackson Lee as Cynthia McKinney.’ ”

Oops. Wrong black woman.

Don’t be left out of the fun, people. Play along at home! If you come across a well-known MBP, please email me (at the address on my profile page). In the meantime, if you’re black… umm, I hope you don’t get pulled into any police lineups.

UPDATE (02/10/07): Big thanks to Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious. She picked up on the version of my MBP piece which was posted at Romenesko.

Two Racialicious readers posted fantastic comments. “Lyonside” wrote yesterday:

“This happens in daily life too… 2 weeks ago at the post office, I asked for a book of stamps with Ella Fitzgerald. It’s my own fault for not looking at the book before I got in the car, but the clerk gave me Hattie McDaniel… Yup, Mammy.”

And “Anna” wrote today:

“I used to work at a photo agency for many years… and this was always a problem (I am white as was nearly all of the staff in the department). Unbelivable doozies, a recurring error was mixing up Colin Powell and Louis Farrakhan, we spent 10-15 minutes at meeting looking at their photos and it still happened afterwards. …

“After I got a reputation for making less of these errors (just meticulous about any person’s name and knew reliable web sites to check), I was called on all the time to verify Black, Latin, or Asian celebrities, politicians etc. It never occurred to managers that a more diverse staff would be more helpful than just designating one white girl as the racial expert.”

In search of Misidentified Black People

To maintain this blog’s longest-running gimmick – a catalog of Misidentified Black People in the media – I occasionally do the tedious work of searching through newspapers’ online corrections pages (via Regret the Error).

I should be happy when I don’t find any MBPs. Instead, I get a little bit frustrated. (I know they’re out there somewhere!)

For the past week or so, the Los Angeles Times has been misidentifying everybody except black folks.

On Monday, the Times ran a photo of novelist Michael Tolkin but mislabeled it as filmmaker Henry Bean.

The Times last week misidentified a photo of L.A. Laker Sasha Vujacic as Vladimir Radmanovic.

And the Times misidentified a photo of Taiwanese official James Huang as Chiou I-jen (a different Taiwanese official).

The L.A. Times even misidentified a photo of a Kentucky Derby horse. But no MBPs.

If this keeps up, they’re gonna ruin my premise.

MBP of the Week: Chicago Tribune

Now you guys are getting into the spirit of this thing! Alex Gordon of the group blog A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago brought the following Misidentified Black Person to my attention. (Big thanks, Alex.)

The Chicago Tribune last Saturday ran a long feature – 50 paragraphs long – on former NBA player Kevin Gamble (above bottom), who returned to his hometown of Springfield, Ill., and built a basketball program from scratch at the University of Illinois-Springfield.

Only one problem. A photograph supposedly showing Kevin Gamble in his playing days wasn't Kevin Gamble at all.

This morning, the Tribune posted this correction on the Web:

"CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS: A 1990 file photograph that accompanied the story incorrectly identified a player as Kevin Gamble. It was not; the archival information was incorrect."

Alex Gordon tells me the photo was actually of another Boston Celtic, Dee Brown (above top).

Easy mistake to make. Those Irish... they all look alike.

UPDATE (02/15/07): When it comes to being misidentified in the media, female basketball players are as vulnerable as the men. And college newspapers are as prone to screwing up as the pros.

This correction was posted yesterday on the website of Kansas University's student paper:

“Tuesday’s The University Daily Kansan contained an error. The player in the photo, with the article ‘Shaq makes big plays at the buzzer,’ was misidentified. No. 20 Sade Morris was incorrectly identified as Shaq Mosley.”

MBP of the Week: Philadelphia Inquirer

Gladys Cook has sung for 59 years in her church choir in North Philadelphia. So when the church paid tribute to “Mom Cook” on Sunday, the Philadelphia Inquirer was there.

The newspaper published a feature article about Gladys Cook yesterday.

And it printed a photograph of somebody else, misidentified as “Gladys Cook.”

As a good Christian woman, I’m sure Mrs. Cook will forgive the Inquirer for screwing up her moment of honor.

I, on the other hand, will merely add this to my roster of Misidentified Black People, and wonder how a paper can devote 19 paragraphs to a person and get the picture wrong.

Here is the correction the Inquirer ran today:

“A photo caption with a story yesterday about New St. John Baptist Church choir member Gladys Cook misidentified Williemae Jones, another member of the choir, as Cook. A photo of Gladys Cook appears above.”

MBP of the Week: Washington Post

I may develop carpal tunnel syndrome tipping my hat to Craig Silverman (my Canadian soul brother). On his Regret the Error blog today, he highlighted the following correction from yesterday’s Washington Post:

“A photograph in the April 20 Sports section purporting to show Louisiana State University quarterback JaMarcus Russell instead showed teammate Craig Davis.”

That’s JaMarcus Russell pictured above. To get a look at Craig Davis, click here.

Thanks again, Craig Silverman. I couldn’t do this without you.

Let me remind my readers that it occasionally happens to white folks too. (Occasionally.) Here’s a correction that ran in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last Friday:

“REO Speedwagon was pictured in the photo on Page 2 of Thursday’s Get Out section. The caption misidentified the group as Styx.”

UPDATE (04/26/07): Don’t know what it is about the Louisiana State University football team. But Craig Silverman cites another LSU-related Misidentified Black Person this week.

The following correction is from yesterday’s Chicago Tribune:

“The identity of an LSU football player was incorrect in a photo caption on the back page of Tuesday’s Sports section. The player shown was not LaRon Landry but teammate Dwayne Bowe.”

The Chicago Tribune sports section is the worst serial offender I’ve encountered since I began cataloging MBPs.

Matter of fact, Tuesday’s fuck-up comes one month after Tribune sports editor Dan McGrath told journalism blogger Richard Prince: “Our department is taking a hard and probably overdue look at our process for identifying photos in the hope of making it more reliable and eliminating such errors in the future.”

In the hope of making it more reliable…?

Yeah, okay. Keep hope alive, Mr. McGrath.

Meanwhile, I’ll remind everybody of this MBP classic, as corrected by the Chicago Tribune in early 2006:

“On the back page of Thursday’s Sports section, a photo of Serena Williams with members of the group Destiny’s Child was misidentified as Beyonce Knowles.”

Oh, and speaking of tennis… there’s this correction the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s website:

“A caption for a photograph on Page 1C of Monday’s Sports section incorrectly identified Lori McNeil, a coach for the U.S. Fed Cup tennis team.”

Gee, I wonder who they said she was? (My guess is Zina Garrison.) I got any readers in the Broward or South Palm Beach area who can lay hands on an April 23 Sun-Sentinel and see?

UPDATE (05/02/07): I was right! Am I good, or am I good?

I went to the trouble of purchasing a back issue of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, because its correction didn’t provide full disclosure on the misidentification of tennis coach Lori McNeil.

Sure enough, the photo caption on April 23 said “Zina Garrison.”

MBP update: The Trib responds

Richard Prince, an online columnist for the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, got a response from the Chicago Tribune’s sports editor, Dan McGrath, regarding two Misidentified Black People highlighted on this blog.

(To remind you: The Tribune last month published a feature story on former NBA guard Kevin Gamble, and then, soon after, a feature story on college basketball player Marcus Heard. In each case – as I described here and here – the Trib printed a wrong photo, showing a different black ballplayer. The Tribune ran corrections, but never explained how these mistakes happened.)

The Tribune’s Dan McGrath told Dick Prince last week: “Our department is taking a hard and probably overdue look at our process for identifying photos in the hope of making it more reliable and eliminating such errors in the future. The staffers responsible for the [Heard] error were dealt with appropriately. [Reporter Lew] Freedman and I both apologized to Mr. Heard and his family. The [Gamble] photo was misidentified by the wire service that circulated it, but we did not catch the error in the office.”

The first step in overcoming MBP is admitting there is a problem, so good for you, Mr. McGrath. By all means, look at your process, make it more reliable. It’s up to each and every one of us to combat MBP.

MBP of the Week: Edmonton Sun

Here I thought Canada was a multiculti paradise. Turns out they’ve got Misidentified Black People in newspapers up there too!

Would it shock you to learn that the Canadian Football League was somehow involved in this latest MBP?

I thought not.

The following correction ran in the Edmonton Sun last week:

“A photo in yesterday’s Sun ran with the incorrect information. Instead of it being a photo of [Edmonton] Eskimo Shannon Garrett, the photo was of Ricky Williams. Unfortunately, the file photo was misidentified in our system. The Sun apologizes for the error.”

Hat-tip to Craig Silverman at Regret the Error.

FYI, the top photo is Mr. Garrett (a 13-year veteran), the bottom photo is Mr. Williams (a rookie).

MBP of the Week: New York Times

Yes... yes, the New York Times misidentified another famous black person.

You go: “Okay, Dave. Athlete or rapper?”

Rapper.

The best newspaper in America published the following correction yesterday, and posted it on its website:

“A picture caption with the Playlist column last Sunday misidentified the rapper at the top of the page. He is Mos Def – not Talib Kweli, whose work was featured in the column.”

Hear that, Mos? You need to star in some more big Hollywood movies, brah. So these muthafuckas know what you look like!

(Hat-tip: Regret the Error.)

MBP of the Week: The Times (Trenton, N.J.)

According to Regret the Error, the following correction was published in the Times of Trenton:

“The picture of Tupac Shakur in People in the News was misidentified as Snoop Dogg.”

I have no further information, like a date. But I would love to see a print copy of the original mistake, because this is a classic Misidentified Black Person. Proving that even in death, you are not safe.

(Thanks, Rich.)

MBP of the Week: New Orleans Times-Picayune

Well how about this? This week’s Misidentified Black Person is not a basketball player! He’s a big-city police chief.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune published the following correction yesterday:

“Riley not in photograph: A photo caption in some Thursday editions incorrectly identified New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley as one of three people pictured in a wooded area of Algiers where skeletal remains were found.”

But hey, it still happens to basketball players too... even now that it’s tournament time. I thank the reader who pointed out that the Associated Press yesterday misidentified Arkansas Razorback guard Patrick Beverley in this photo caption, labeling him Sonny Weems (a Razorback forward).

The AP hasn’t yet run a correction.

Thanks also to Irin Carmon, who pointed out that New York magazine’s website yesterday posted the wrong picture alongside a brief interview with rapper Juelz Santana. The correction reads:

“The item was initially accompanied by a photo of the rapper Fabolous.... We regret the error.”

Good looking out, people.

MBP of the Week: Sports Illustrated

As much as athletes seem to fall prey to the Misidentified Black Person syndrome, I never figured Sports Illustrated would slip up. And definitely not when two Heisman Trophy-winning football stars are involved.

But in the July 23 issue of SI, you’ll find this correction on page 14:

“Desmond Howard... was misidentified in a Leading Off photo of 16 Heisman winners in the July 16 issue.”

To be specific, the magazine labeled him as another wide receiver – Tim Brown.

Thanks to readers Jeff and David for letting me know.

MBP of the Week: Internet Movie Database

A Misidentified Black Person on IMDb? Say it ain’t so!

As you can plainly see, that picture above is not Tristan Wilds, the young actor who got his big break on “The Wire” and now co-stars in “90210.”

It’s Tyler James Williams, the star of “Everybody Hates Chris.”

To make matters worse, check out the photo below. That is Tristan Wilds... at the L.A. premiere of “The Secret Life of Bees.” But IMDb says it’s Nate Parker (who also co-stars in the movie).

Yo Tristan, don’t let it get you down, young’un. Just get used to being misidentified in the media... because it will happen again.

(Thanks for the tip, Mani.)

MBP of the Week: New York Times

I failed to mention last week the death of Pervis Jackson, a founding member of the Spinners. He was 70 years old, and he’d performed with the group as recently as last month.

I regret now the need to mention Mr. Jackson in the context of Misidentified Black People.

The New York Times will print a correction in tomorrow’s paper. The correction is already up online. Here’s what it says:

“Because of an editing error, a picture caption on Friday with an obituary about Pervis Jackson, a founding member of the singing group the Spinners, misidentified Mr. Jackson in some copies. In the photograph showing the five Spinners, he was second from the right, not second from the left. (That was Bobby Smith.)”

Here is the photograph in question:

R.I.P., Mr. Jackson.

MBP of the Week: Orlando Sentinel

Here’s a Misidentified Black Person I didn’t catch earlier. The Orlando Sentinel published the following correction on December 5:

“The caption with a photograph of three University of Central Florida football players holding the Liberty Bowl trophy on Page C16 of Monday’s Sports section misidentified the player wearing No. 21 in the center. He is Curtis Francis.”

I do not know whom the Sentinel said he was. But wouldn’t you think the big-ass “21” on his jersey made it easy to get this right?

MBP of the Week: Boston Globe

’Twas on February 7, 2007, that I first posted about Misidentified Black People in the mainstream media.

I wish I had a better example of the phenomenon for this anniversary post, but here is something kinda cute...

The item above was printed in Monday’s Boston Globe. On Tuesday, the Globe ran the following correction:

“Because of a reporting error, actor Cuba Gooding Jr. was misidentified as a ballplayer in Monday’s Names column.”

Hmm. They must’ve thought “Jerry Maguire” was a documentary.

Also, I wouldn’t call this a “reporting error” but a “failure of editing” or a “copy desk brain fart.” Somebody somewhere along the line shoulda caught that pop-up.

(Hat-tip: The reliable Craig Silverman at Regret the Error.)

MBP of the Week: New York Times

The New York Times posted this correction on its website Sunday:

“An entry on Nov. 4 in the Holiday Movies listings misidentified the actor who portrays a member of a small-time crime duo preparing to rob a local church in ‘First Sundays.’ He is Tracy Morgan — not Chi McBride, who plays the pastor at the church.”

(Hat-tip: Regret the Error.)

For those keeping score, this is the sixth time I’ve featured a New York Times mistake since I began cataloging Misidentified Black People nine months ago.

MBP of the Week: New York Times (again)

The so-called “greatest newspaper in the world,” the New York Times, published several embarrassing corrections today. One deals with a fabricating source, another with a quasi-plagiarizing book essayist. And one deals with a Misidentified Black Person.

Other media critics will surely spank the Times over the made-up shit and the intellectual theft. But I guess it’s up to me to administer some ass-reddening discipline on the matter of the MBP.

On March 11, the esteemed film critic Terrence Rafferty waxed esoteric about the French New Wave and director Eric Rohmer, whose 1972 movie “Chloe in the Afternoon” was just remade by Chris Rock as “I Think I Love My Wife.”

While displaying his acute knowledge of the works of Truffaut, Godard and Claude Chabrol, Mr. Rafferty seems nevertheless unable to tell two black women apart.

After describing the free-spirited character of “Chloe” from Eric Rohmer’s film – a woman who tempts a married man to cheat on his wife – Rafferty wrote this:

“There’s a hint of that existential semi-malaise in the intense attraction of Mr. Rock’s character, Richard, to his Chloe figure, Nikki (Gina Torres). But mostly he’s really randy.”

Uhh… nice observation, Terrence. Except that Gina Torres plays Rock’s wife; it’s Kerry Washington who portrays the tempting “Chloe figure.”

Now, I can’t blame Rafferty for never having watched “Cleopatra 2525” on TV, and thus not knowing who the hell Gina Torres is. But good Lord… this man reviews movies for a living. He doesn’t know that Kerry Washington is one of the best young actresses out there? He hasn’t seen “Ray”? “The Last King of Scotland”? Or her breakout indie performances in “Our Song” and “Lift”?

Strange thing is, the New York Times ran this photo with Rafferty’s piece:


The caption correctly identifies the woman as Gina Torres. Now study that picture: Does Ms. Torres’s character look like Chris Rock’s temptress? Or his wife?

Here’s the correction the Times ran today:

“An article on March 11 about Chris Rock’s ‘I Think I Love My Wife’ and other remakes of French New Wave films misidentified to the actress who tempts Mr. Rock’s character. She is Kerry Washington, not Gina Torres.”

Oh, and another thing: Why did it take two weeks to fix this mistake? Yo, bitches… I’m still waitin’ for that Satchmo correction! Don’t think I forgot.