WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats achieved their biggest majority in the U.S. Senate in decades on Tuesday as Al Franken of Minnesota finally took his seat — but President Barak Obama will still have to fight hard to muster the votes to pass healthcare reform and other major initiatives.

This article has Obama’s first name spelled wrong in the first paragraph. Boo!

D.W.

We corrected, but not before readers noticed. Which brings us to this next item.

In the days following the self-proclaimed king of pop’s death on June 25 aged 50, reports of prescription-drug abuse have served as eerie reminders of the pharmaceutical cocktails that Presley was taking before he died in 1977.

I normally have great respect for Reuters, but I am disappointed in your lack of journalistic standards where Michael Jackson is concerned.

Where did the “self-proclaimed king of pop” come from in your “Fans Overlook Michael Jackson’s dark side??

Can you offer your readers evidence that Michael did proclaim himself King of Pop (and if you can, why didn’t you offer it?) or, as I suspect, did you just repeat something you’ve heard other people say without doing your own investigation?

Phoenix

When did you hear him say he was the king of the pop? It’s the people who loved him which gave him this title .

R.I.P MIchael Jackson

Tatiana

Jackson never once said or required anyone to call him “King Of Pop”. And even though tabloids speculated that he “forced” MTV to call him that back in 1991, after years passed, MTV higher management denied that.

When describing himself, Michael was humble — saying that he is a “singer.”

Sol

He never called himself the King Of Pop, it was at an Award show where Liz Taylor called MJ . “The king of pop, rock and soul.”

Please stop call him the “self proclaimed King Of Pop” Michael never came out and said I am the King Of Pop.
Liz said it and the fans agreed, along with those printing T-Shirts etc, NOT Michael. Give him respect Please.

Paul H.

Michael Jackson never titled himself the KING of POP!

Stop writing bull!!

You are REUTERS not the SUN - the tabloid!

First find the facts then write the truth!!!

Michael F.

He has never been a self-proclaimed king of pop.Every one knows that.Shame on you that you write like this instead of showing some respect to him.Shame on you, shame on you.

Roya

The e-mails streamed in about this one. There were reports in 1991 that the TV outlets that got the rights to premiere his “Black or White” had to refer to him as “the King of Pop” as part of  the deal, which appears to be where we got the “self-proclaimed” angle.

I’m not aware that anybody has a clip of Jackson actually calling himself that, which means we should take care in using that description.

Michael Jackson during a news conference in London, March 5, 2009. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

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But the Swiss giant is still embroiled in a civil lawsuit in which the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is trying to get information about 52,000 U.S. accounts and it faces a first court hearing on July 13.

This article while well written contains a large error, the IRS the United States Federal Government’s Tax Agency is known colloquially and officially as the Internal Revenue Service, not Inland.

This error makes your article look sloppy, and as if no one has proof-read it. The time it takes to do proofreading and fact-checking is a few seconds by typing IRS into Google.

Steven B.

We corrected. Inland Revenue is the name of the tax collection authority in a number of countries, but not, as you point out, in the U.S. GBU Editor

Holding a tax rebate letter from the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. President George W. Bush speaks about the economy during a visit to a small business in Sterling, Virginia March 26, 2006. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X AB said on Tuesday it had agreed to buy free file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, and that it would find ways to compensate copyright owners for downloaded material.

The four Swedish men behind the website were sentenced in April to one year in jail and ordered to pay damages of 3.6 million dollars for running the site, which is one of the world’s largest for downloading files on the Internet.

The PirateBay founders are NOT in jail!!! They are free on appeal.

Please get your facts straight and spare us this type of dishonest and sensationalistic headlining. It is sad to see Reuters going down the road of tabloid journalism.

Matt B.

Is this true? In Sweden one does not serve a sentence until the appeals process ends. Their conviction came from the lowest Swedish court and now they are appealing to the district (which will most likely end up being seen before the Supreme court before this is over and done with.

I just think it is unfair to say they are making money while in jail while to the best of my knowledge the verdict is not yet lawful and they are still free men.

John L,

A number of readers noticed this one. The headline was correct on most of our services, but unfortunately was rewritten in the online version: GBU Editor

Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij (L), Gottfrid Svartholm (C) and Peter Sunde leave the city court after the last day of argument’s in their copyright trial in Stockholm March 3, 2009. REUTERS/Bob Strong

NEW YORK, June 29 (Reuters) - Admitted thief Bernard Madoff will leave his jail cell and be taken under guard to court on Monday morning to hear his punishment for running Wall Street’s biggest and most brazen investment scheme.

The opening sentence in this article is ignorant. It It is not a crime to run a big or a brazen investment scheme.

The effects rich, alien versus robot war movie, came close to eclipsing last year’s single-day debut of Batman movie “The Dark Knight,” which posthumously starred actor Heath Ledger and took in $67.2 million in domestic markets on its Friday debut.

In your article that compares the box office of the movies “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “The Dark Knight”, the writer claims actor Heath Ledger posthumously starred in his movie.

How does one posthumously star in a movie? Did Heath Ledger not actually star in the movie?

Now, if he won an award for his role, then he received that award posthumously…

Michael M.

That didn’t exactly say what we meant to say: GBU Editor

The family of the late Heath Ledger, including mother Sally Bell,  sister Kate Ledger, and father Kim Ledger, accept the Oscar for best supporting actor on Heath Ledger’s behalf for his work in “The Dark Knight” during the 81st Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 22, 2009.  REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

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Hi my name is Kyle Reuter and i was wondering if its legal for me to do News using my last name????

Kyle

Um, I don’t like to duck questions, but I don’t think I’m really the right person to advise you on this one.

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MOSCOW, June 26 (Reuters) - Cheap and illicit alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years and the government must act urgently to reverse the trend, a study to be published in The Lancet at the weekend said.

“Excessive alcohol consumption in Russia, particularly by men, has in several recent years caused more than half of all the deaths at ages of 15-54 years,” the Lancet article said.

Both your lead paragraph and your headline have the same error.

Alcohol does not kill half of all Russians in their most productive years. Rather, half of all deaths of Russians in their most productive years are killed by alcohol.

That’s a very important difference. Half of all deaths is a number in the hundreds of thousands; which is very high to be sure. If your paragraph were accurate than tens of millions of Russians would be dying.

M.A.K.

Yes. The story later makes clear what we meant, but the headline and lead are indeed misleading: GBU Editor

A man drinks antiseptic alcohol on a street in central Moscow in a 2006 file photo. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

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News of the planned building work emerged hours before Defense Minister Ehud Barak left for the United States for talks aimed at narrowing a rift with Washington over settlements.

He will meet President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in New York on Tuesday, Barak’s office said.

A goal of the Israeli-U.S. negotiations is “advancing a process for a comprehensive regional settlement in the Middle East,” Barak’s office quoted him as saying in a statement.

Since when is it appropriate to call an international figure and national leader by their first name? “Barak’s office said.” “Barak left open the possibility of a limited, temporary…” “Barak has also spoken of couching a Palestinian deal…”

And people wonder why print journalism is a dying profession.

Stigler

I think you’re a little confused here. The second paragraph made a clear reference to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Barak is his surname, and is spelled differently from Barack, so it should be possible to keep them straight in the story: GBU Editor

Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak (R) meets U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell in New York, June 30, 2009. REUTERS/Jamie Fine

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The Harry Winston chain provided jewels to Richard Burton for his wife Elizabeth Taylor and shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis bought an engagement ring there for former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

It is really not newsworthy of the reporters to make reference to ‘celebrities’ people today wouldn’t know or care two hoots about.  Please.

Jean-François

Please tell me you’re joking. I realize Jackie Kennedy was no Kate Gosselin in the fame department, but she did get her name in the papers a few times: GBU Editor

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis shown in this June 27, 1953 photograph with then Senator John F. Kennedy in Hyannisport, Massachusetts

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