The news about the start of Bruce Springsteen’s new tour in Barcelona on Friday of last week, with the assistance of Barack and Michelle Obama and Steven Spielberg and his wife, were among the most interesting last weekend. It was reported where they stayed, what places they visited, where they ate and, of course, their vibrant concerts at the Estadi OlÃmpic.
Some readers and subscribers have written to me because of an error in the chronicle of the first concert. Despite the fact that at the start of the article it was correctly stated that Springsteen began his concert with a “Hello Barcelona! Hello Catalunya! â€, In the fifth paragraph it was stated that in the middle of the performance he proclaimed: “Catalunya, Spain, us esteem! â€. However, at that moment what he really said was: “Catalonia! Barcelona! Estimate us!â€.
Some of the readers believed that the inclusion of Spain was not a casual mistake but an intentional one. “They have manipulated the words of Bruce,” wrote Joan Esmel, who opined that “this is not an innocent mistake.” Emilia Francia expressed herself along a similar line: “Lying affects the credibility of the newspaper. I look forward to seeing what steps they take so I can continue to believe in their impartiality.” Mercè Trullén pointed out that “the videos bear witness to what was really said”. The subscriber Marcel Salellas congratulated the author of the information, Sergi Lozano, for reflecting the “many emotions in a significant concert and an experience that for many will have been unforgettable”, but also pointed out that the reference to Spain seemed “very strange” and asked whether it was “just a mistake, the printer’s leprechaun”, or a “conscious insertion”.
Lozano, with a long career in the newspaper and who, before joining the Culture section, demonstrated great reliability at the head of closing the printed edition, makes it clear that it was not intentional. “To do the chronicle, I was watching the songs or, for example, when Michelle Obama took the stage… At the moment Springsteen said those words, I was pointing to something else and I understood that he was saying Catalonia, Spain. I was wrong and I’m sorry. We corrected it in the morning in the digital edition and the next day a letter of errors came out on paperâ€.
The management of the newspaper, for its part, accepts Lozano’s explanation – it considers it evident that in no case was there any intention to manipulate – and maintains full confidence in his professionalism.
Readers are right that the error is not minor: they must be able to trust that if we attribute a literal sentence to a person, that sentence was actually uttered. But mistakes happen. And once committed, it is only possible to correct and apologize.
