If you have been misinformed by your interpretation of some of my previous posts, I apologise. (Insert smiley face here!).
Good one, Rihc!
You've reminded me of one of the first "corrections" The New Yorker magazine, with its phalanx of fact-checkers, ever deigned to run.
As a matter of fact, they didn't call it a "correction." The New Yorker, after all, couldn't have been WRONG!
The facts (reconstructed from memory, and not officially fact-checked):
The wonderful John McPhee wanted to profile a chef he called "Otto" (not his real name) -- who, McPhee would report, had prepared all of the best meals McPhee had ever eaten. Otto ran a small restaurant out in the country someplace; he was, like McPhee, a perfectionist craftsman of the first rank, who prepared just as many dinners each day as he could manage without compromising his perfectionism or craftsmanship in any way. "Otto" agreed to be profiled, on one condition -- that he never be identified publicly ... or even privately, to McPhee's colleagues. (Otto feared being overrun with business -- and, thereby, ruined!) The editor, Mr. Shawn, agreed to this condition -- meaning that McPhee's profile (titled "Brigade de Cuisine") was the first New Yorker fact piece ever not fact-checked by the fact-checkers.
McPhee's profile was published. I believe it was in Part II that McPhee and "Otto" ventured out into the wider world to eat -- including to McDonald's (I'll never forget that "Otto" was crazy about the Egg McMuffin) and to Lutece ... which was then (and may be still, for all I know) at the unchallenged pinnacle of Manhattan's haute cuisine.
At Lutece, "Otto" ordered the turbot. As he ate it, he was appalled: It had been frozen, "Otto" said. It was not fresh! Scandalous!
Well, one could not make such an accusation without serious repercussions. Either the New York Times contacted the chef at Lutece, or the chef at Lutece contacted the New York Times -- but in either case, the chef was livid, insistent that he would NEVER in the world serve a frozen turbot! Sacre bleu!
What ensued was, for my money, high comedy: The NYT reporter actually journeyed down to the wharves, to inspect the records for the fish purchased by and delivered to Lutece -- records that proved, to the Times' satisfaction, that the turbot "Otto" had eaten the night of his visit had, in fact, been delivered fresh that day.
A week or two later, McPhee published (under, if memory serves, the heading "Department of Amplification") a note acknowledging the error. I cannot quote it in its entirety -- but it went very much like this ... and I'll never forget the last line, which I'm quite sure I'm quoting here verbatim: "... Chef Otto alleged that the turbot he was served at Lutece was not fresh, but had been frozen. Chef Otto was wrong."
Chef Otto was wrong! Not: I was wrong!
P.S. Of course, the NYT's restaurant critic (Mimi Sheraton at the time, I think) couldn't leave well enough alone -- and surely couldn't let that pipsqueak non-foodie McPhee one-up her! Who was HE to say who made the best dinners ever? That was HER job!
She launched an investigation to find "Otto's" establishment -- and, finally, did ... out in the Pa. countryside somewhere, I think.
She went out there, ate some meals, came back to the newsroom and trashed the joint. Nothing special, she said.
Talk about high comedy!