This time of year always makes me a little reflective. I recall things that I had done during the past 12 months, and think of ways I could've done them better. One was brought to my attention by a fellow journalist, Mark Pargas, a staff editor for the New York Times.

If you recall, I took Mark to task over some discrepancies in his story that he had written for the Dec. 1 editon of the Times' Escapes section. The way the story appeared, it seemed he had forgotten how the NHL playoffs had gone back in 1993, stating that the Kings lost to Toronto. Perhaps with a little too much glee, I attacked Mark and the New York Times, one of the industry's great newspapers, without giving him the benefit of the doubt.

In his email, Mark pointed out that even though his name was on the story, he did not make the mistake. He stated that according to space constraints, his story was trimmed by copy editors, blending several stories to make it fit. Within hours of publishing the story online, the Times' did indeed correct the story online, and they ran a correction in the printed edition on Dec. 8. However, as is the case with many corrections in the print edition, it went unnoticed by many, including me.

The Internet, as many of you already know, has become this leviathan of information. Countless opinions are voiced in a million different ways. Often, many take these opinions as facts, which in turn becomes misinformation. As is the case with bloggers and similar forms of communication, some writers hide behind the veil of denial that blogs should not be considered no more than just opinions and observations.

However, that should not be the case with journalists, where we should take fact-checking very seriously. According to Mark, he had the right information, but it was deleted in the course of editing by the copy desk.

This has turned out to be one of those things that, upon reflection, I should have handled differently. As in the case of CBS Sportsline's Wes Goldstein, I shouldn't have called him by name, and for that, I am sorry. The errors that appeared in the story were ones that were put in by copy editors, and not Mark.

So in the spirit of Christmas, Chanakuh, Kwanzaa and Festivus, I wanted to take this opportunity to extend an olive branch, bough of holly, Festivus pole and any other holiday-related item to publicly apologize to Mark for any trouble I may have caused him in all of this.

At the end of his email, he asked why was Dan Cloutier keeps giving up goals like he did to the Flames' Tony Amonte the other night. Mark, your guess is as good as mine.