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When you’re a journalist, the worst call you can get is the morning after a story runs and someone tells you about a mistake in your article. Your heart sinks and your stomach churns because you know you can’t put the tooth paste back in the tube.

Thanks to Craig Silverman, we have some of the best corrections of 2008. And thank God none included me. Here are some of the best:

Four different newspapers published apologies this year because they had reported – inaccurately! – that David Gest has herpes. Specifically, they reported that Gest alleged that he had contracted herpes from Liza Minnelli on their wedding night. The offenders were The Independent (UK), Daily Mail (UK), Times (UK) and the Baltimore Sun. (Perhaps I missed a few others.) Read all four apologies here, and here’s one from the Daily Mail:

In articles published on 23 and 26 May 2008, we gave the impression that Mr Gest had contracted a sexually transmitted infection and alleged that he had Liza Minnelli’s dog killed without her knowledge.

This was wrong. David Gest has never had a sexually transmitted infection and did not have Ms Minnelli’s dog killed.

We apologise to Mr Gest for any embarrassment caused.

This from humorist Dave Berry:

In yesterday’s column about badminton, I misspelled the name of Guatemalan player Kevin Cordon. I apologize. In my defense, I want to note that in the same column I correctly spelled Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarak, Poompat Sapkulchananart and Porntip Buranapraseatsuk. So by the time I got to Kevin Cordon, my fingers were exhausted.

A funny one from Slate:

In the June 20 “Culturebox,” Jonah Weiner stated that Lil Wayne was the first hip-hop artist to fantasize about eating his competition. Other rappers have contemplated consuming their rivals.

Where was the copy desk on this one?

We said that, in the American TV drama “24,” Jack Bauer, the counter-terrorism agent, resorted to electrocution to extract information. You cannot extract information from someone who has been electrocuted because they are dead.

It gets better.

Our article last Tuesday headed “It’s Sven Giggle Eriksson” pictured Mr Eriksson in a hotel restaurant with a young lady. We wrongly assumed that the lady was an admirer and suggested that he was fondling her. In fact the lady was Lina, Mr Eriksson’s daughter, with whom he was having a normal fatherly embrace. We apologise to Mr Eriksson and his daughter for the embarrassment and distress caused by the publication of the photographs and incorrect assumptions made about them.

And our favorite:

The Eastern Daily Press has apologised after confusing the Bishop of Norwich with serial killer Steve Wright, known as the “Suffolk strangler”. The paper printed a letter from Rupert Read of the Eastern Region Green Party calling for brothels to be closed following the Ipswich murders saying: “Surely that is the best memorial to the women who died at the hands of Steve Wright (pictured).” But the EDP printed a picture of the Bishop of Norwich, the Right Rev Graham James, with his dog collar clearly visible, instead of Wright. The paper has printed an apology and has agreed to make a donation to a Christian group that helps prostitutes of which the Bishop is a patron.