Mistakes That Won't Go Away Re "The Error Iceberg" (Feb. 26): As the father of a correction that seemed to have no end, I can attest to the frustration that a mistake in the newspaper of record exacts. When Battery Park City was created from landfill in 1972, The Times attributed the source of this landfill to the excavation from the adjacent World Trade Center. But that excavation produced only 24 of the project's 92 acres; the rest came from sand excavated from the lower New York Harbor. Despite letter after letter I have written over 40 years correcting that error, reporter after reporter and editor after editor, referring to that original story, have repeated the mistake. An article in the paper last November about Governors Island again referred to the World Trade Center as the source of the Battery Park City landfill. This prompted still another response from me, and this time - Hallelujah! - a correction was printed, on Nov. 24, 2011. Bronx The writer was the first director of public information of the Battery Park City Authority, serving from 1968 to 1979. Arthur S. Brisbane, public editor: Greg Brock, the senior editor who is responsible for overseeing corrections, said this error has been corrected twice since he has served in this role: the first was on July 20, 2007. I am a transactional lawyer and used to wonder why all of the newspaper articles about projects I worked on were inaccurate. I finally concluded that most articles about all subjects were inaccurate, but I didn't know enough about many of them to see the errors. St. Louis I have been a journalist for 30 years, previously at The Wall Street Journal and now heading a new financial Web site, AdviceIQ.com. I am dubious about the 2005 study saying 60 percent of the articles in a survey of 14 papers contained some kind of error, according to the news sources. How credible are these complaints? I have found: not very. What do we mean by "some kind of error"? In my experience, some folks are never pleased by what is written about them because it does not make them out to be a water walker. Spot-on reporting about someone's shortcomings often elicits a response that it is wrong or unfair. When I was a police reporter, I wrote about a convicted felon. A member of his family complained that this was in error because he was wrongly convicted. I did include the felon's protestations of innocence in my article. A lot of times, an "error" complaint has to do with omissions that the story subject deems more pertinent than does the writer. I have had articles written about me or my activities. I have no complaint on the facts. But oh, I guess I could cavil that the writers omitted the full sweep of my brilliance. Arthur Brisbane: It is true that some errors identified in the study were categorized by the news sources who reported them as "omissions." Excluding such subjective errors, factual mistakes occurred in nearly 50 percent of the articles (with one-fifth of those attributable to misquotation). The Readers" Portal Re "Many Voices, but Still One Times" (Feb. 19): Portals and portal-thinking have been bypassed on the current Web, but you make a very good argument for each of the constituent parts. If there's an ethos on the new Web, it's that you can get a lot done with existing tools. Perhaps simply establishing a blog to create a dialogue between editors and readers, and then linking the things you suggest from the blog's sidebar, would solve the problem without a full-blown development effort. Rochester Arthur Brisbane: The reader portal that I recommended would include a blog where Times editors could communicate with readers, a comprehensive staff list, searchable Times policies and other elements. Thanks, these are common sense ideas. I hope The Times adopts them. Trying to communicate with reporters is so hit and miss. Some get back to you stat, others never. And some e-mails bounce back. Brooklyn "Feel Good" and Fairness Re "The Quarterback's Tangled Saga" (Feb. 5): I am still amazed that The Times would participate in, nay, really start, the smearing of the Yale player, Patrick Witt. To publish a major story based on unsubstantiated and unconfirmed allegations, also believed to be confidential, seems to be character assassination at best, and truly irresponsible journalism. This should be beneath The Times. By the way, what was wrong with a "feel good" story during these very troubled days? Okatie, S.C. Why not simply say, "We apologize"? In your long explanation, you sound self-important, and as if you think it was a close call - that the reporter and his editor simply made a mistake of judgment under difficult circumstances. In fact, it was character assassination. The idea that the story was not about the allegation of an assault but about the "feel good" story is nonsense. If not about character assassination, then why did your reporter talk about Patrick Witt's arrest while at the University of Nebraska? Your newspaper is losing its bearings. Berkeley, Calif. Arthur Brisbane: The public editor is independent and does not speak for The Times. Hence apologizing for The Times is outside my charter. Your interesting and persuasive article about reporting on an accusation of sexual assault involving two Yale students raises an issue about Yale's intervening in such matters. Sexual assault is a very serious offense, as is that of false accusation. They are not among academic offenses, like cheating or plagiarism, that might reasonably be handled by academic authorities. They should be pursued through the legal system, which has both experience and jurisdiction. If the students were enrolled in different universities, the matter would be turned over to the authorities. Why does the fact that they are among the more than 11,000 students matriculated at Yale make a difference?