All newspaper mistakes are unfortunate, but some of them are more unfortunate than others -- and the one featured in the corrections section of today's Denver Post goes straight to the head of the class. The mea culpa reads: "A photo that accompanied a story Tuesday on Page 1B in Denver and The West about convicted rapist David Cooper was that of a different David Cooper..."
An enormous gaffe, right? But here's the kicker: The correction has a mistake in it, too.
The updated version of the story, "Longer Outings Sought for Mental Patient," now features the proper photo of David Cooper, who has been held in Pueblo's Colorado Mental Health Instititute for over a decade after being tried for sexually assaulting and killing his ten-year-old daughter -- and who, by the way, is Caucasian, not African-American, as is the person in the above image, which originally accompanied the article. However, the piece points out that Cooper (a major player in "The Good, the Bad & the Mad," a Westword feature published in May) was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the crime. At the very least, that makes labeling him a convicted rapist extremely misleading.
Nice try, Posters. Hope you have better luck next time. -- Michael Roberts
