Corrections in newspapers seem to have one main objective: Correct the article in a way as to make it seem almost out of control of anybody at the paper. Newspapers, whose style coaches will say reporters should always use the active verb tense if possible, nonetheless almost always use the passive tense when writing corrections. Reminds me of President Reagan’s side stepping responsibility for Iran Contra when he said “Mistakes were made.”
Well, one reporter wasn’t letting his editors off that easily. Mark Swed, a music critic for the Los Angeles Times, wrote that a Strauss opera he saw is “an incomparably glorious and goofy pro-life paean…,” meaning “life affirming.” But a crack(ed?) copy editor changed it to “an incomparably glorious and goofy anti-abortion paean…”
When the paper corrected its mistake, it used the passive voice, leading readers to believe it was Swed’s fault. He wasn’t sitting for that.