Apology for front page error in print edition of Thursday’s BDN

The BDN erroneously published a story that was false on the front page of Thursday’s print and e-editions.

The story stated that a body found in Caribou on Tuesday had been identified as missing Washburn man Erik Foote and cited Maine State Police as the source.

No public statement has been made about the identification of the body by state police as of Thursday morning.

When we saw the error we reached out immediately to the Foote family to apologize.

As is common practice for news outlets, we frequently prepare backwritten drafts of articles in anticipation of events. But this article, which did not run online, was supposed to remain a draft. An editor accidentally marked the story as ready for print on Wednesday afternoon and other checks for readiness were not followed. Melissa Lizotte, the author of the draft, was not responsible for it being published.

We deeply regret the error and are taking immediate steps to ensure this does not happen again.