Corrections
When we get it wrong, it goes here.
Every brief is checked against its sources before it publishes. Whatever slips through anyway gets fixed fast, flagged on the corrected page, and logged on this one, permanently.
Policy in effect since July 2026.
What counts as a correction
A correction means a published page said something factually wrong: a wrong number, a misquoted or misattributed line, a wrong name, date, or borough, a claim its cited source does not support. When that happens we fix the page, add a note saying what changed, and file an entry in the log below. The fix and the admission travel together.
Two things stay off this page. A story that moved on is the first: a brief is accurate to its morning, and later developments belong to later briefs. Yesterday's report does not become an error because the vote flipped today. Wording is the second: when a sentence was accurate but easy to misread, we sharpen it, and if the new wording changes what a reader would take away, it gets logged here like any correction.
How the log works
Each entry names the page it corrects, the date the fix went in, what we said, and what is true. Entries are permanent. Nothing here gets rewritten or removed later, and a correction that itself needs correcting gets a fresh entry rather than an edit. The corrected page keeps its original dated URL, with the note on it, so a reader arriving from an old link or a search result sees the fix exactly where the error was.
Most errors never make it this far, which is the point of the machine: before a brief publishes, every quote is checked character for character against the cited article, every figure against its source, and a brief that fails those checks is held rather than sent. The full method lives at how it works. This page exists for whatever gets past all of that, because something eventually will.
Reach the desk
See something wrong? Email hello@newyorkexplained.com or reply to any morning brief; both reach a real person at the city desk. Name the brief if you can (every one lives at a permanent dated URL) and say what looks off. You do not need to be sure, and you do not need to be gentle. Corrections beat compliments.
The record to date
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Corrected August 20, 2026
The August 20, 2026 brief
- What we said
- Our headline layer on the paraprofessional lawsuit gave the mayor's motive but not his reason. The Front Page said City Hall would "sue to block" the $10,000 raise "even after he supported the pay bump as a candidate"; the story ran under "Mamdani sues to stop it" and a dek calling it "suing to unwind their raise." Three quotes ran from critics and none from City Hall.
- What is true
- City Hall says paraprofessionals are underpaid and is suing over how the raise was granted, arguing a Council mandate bypasses union bargaining and sets a "dangerous precedent" (Chalkbeat, Gothamist). UFT president Michael Mulgrew disputes that, saying the union wrote the bill and will defend it in court. Both positions now appear in the headline layer, and the city's response has been added to the quotes.
- Note
- Clarification, not a factual error: every statement was accurate and the story body already carried both sides. The defect was that the headline, dek and Front Page bullet — the parts most readers see — carried only the accusation and omitted the stated reason. Syndicated headlines from other outlets are quoted as published and were not altered. The emailed edition went out before this fix; the web brief now carries it.