There are different degrees of public reaction. One thing is to admit a mistake in a public mailing list for an open source project or even in a blog post that

There are different degrees of public reaction. One thing is to admit a mistake in a public mailing list for an open source project or even in a blog post that were front page of this very forum. It's still a public/external reaction. However, it's a lot different than when you are a public figure and a mistake you made is the cover page of major newspapers. I think that, in those sort of situations, a more tactical approach may be desired, rather than a personal one.