What the outlet published · Sentence 5
“...while pointing to the work of tailings dam expert Steven Vick, who said the eventual failure rate was 100%.”
What the documents say
«Santana also complains that it was inaccurate to refer to the expert mentioned in the article as "Prof Steven Vick" as he is not a professor. He is a geotechnical engineer and consultant with no university affiliation. The incorrect title inflated the apparent authority of the claim and misdirected readers.» «[T]he claims appear to have come from a research paper by Mr Vick in which he said that the structural failure probability of tailings dams "approaches 1.0 after several hundred years" [when constructed using 20th-century technology].» — Reclamación de Santana Minerals, resolución del Media Council, 8 de junio de 2026. NOTA DEL EDITOR: en este punto el diario rectificó. El Otago Daily Times aceptó el error y la web ya no dice «Prof». El Media Council añadió que la corrección debería haberse señalado en el propio artículo.
▸ Refuted with a document