Sacr bleu! Fact-check gaffe at the Times. Photo: CC/ZR

The Times published a hoax email the paper thought was from the mayor of Paris:

The Times blamed the mistake on a failure to verify the authenticity of a letter that arrived by e-mail.

“In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the e-mail and did not hear back,” the paper said. “At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoe’s office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us. We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.”

The Times said it was reviewing its procedures to avoid such an incident in the future.

via NY Times published fake letter from Paris mayor.

I’d hate to be the person who skipped a step-or-two here.