In our previous coverage of the couple accused of manufacturing explosives in their West Village apartment, we referred to Aaron Greene as an undergrad student at Harvard University and a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, based on an initial report by five New York Post reporters. That information was also cited by the Associated Press, Reuters, and other news outlets carrying the story. But reached by telephone today, a spokeswoman from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government tells us, "Aaron Greene did not attend Harvard Kennedy School, or Harvard undergrad."
Gothamist regrets the error. A spokesman for Harvard Business School said they had no one named Aaron Greene in their records, while a spokesman for Harvard Law School confirmed the same.
The Harvard citation is the second detail from that New York Post report that has proven false, the first being the couple's connection to Occupy Wall Street. That detail was disproved in comments made by NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne to the New York Times. Kelly McBride, a senior ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute, told The Village Voice:
"In a case like this, the best practices would suggest that The Post is definitely obligated to correct their mistake, both by updating the online version of the story and noting the error, as well as printing a correction in the paper to inform people who saw the mistake there."
