James Rainey has a piece in the LAT today – “Cronkite blunder a revealing look inside New York Times” – excoriating the East Coast paper for playing favorites with its reporters. Commenting on the almost comical eight errors in Alessandra Stanley’s Walter Cronkite tribute, Rainey opines: The Times has a bad habit, revealed by the Stanley critique and in recent years by the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller incidents, of letting a few well-connected journalists run amok.
Indeed. And let’s hope Rainey realizes it’s not anything new either – Walter Duranty, Herbert Matthews, etc.
But Rainey continues: At the same time, the Times has shown the strength to subject itself to a level of self scrutiny that some (in a Web Age when corrections of grievous errors come labeled as “updates”) would not even pretend.
Hmmm… “… grievous errors come labeled as ‘updates’”… Well, we all make mistakes. But I think the problem is that the modern newspaper is not nearly as well placed to correct them as the Web. First of all, the papers don’t have the personnel. When I most recently wrote for the LAT, fact-checking consisted of a woman calling me up and asking “Was that all true?” and my replying “Yes.” That was it! And that was a few years ago. Things are probably worse now, if anything. At the NYT, they may have a few more fact-checkers, but I suspect not many more.
On the Web, a well-attended blog has thousands of readers. The assembled readers also have a wider knowledge base than the standard fact-checker. The chances of an error getting through are vastly less than at a newspaper. I’m usually corrected within five minutes. [And don't forget. You have me.-ed. How could I?]
Where is the Pajamas Media correction page? I can’t find one.
Neither are corrections acknowledged in your articles. So this seems to be a case of the pot calling two kettles black.
Exactly. The reason the blog/”update” format is superior is that (1) it can disseminate information in real time, or at least timely, (2) it is more interactive, and as feedback comes in, “updates” can add to the discussion, (these are not always “corrections,” though spometimes they are, but are often additions, enhancements and clarifications,) (3) because it is more interactive, it is also discursive, precisely what newspapers and other Old Media are not, (4) the “update” method juxtaposes the original post with the new information (including corrections if necessary,) thereby increasing discursiveness and credibility, as opposed to corrections of Page One stories appearing on page 26 days or weeks later, with no connection to the original story.
Not all blogs use this method, but the most credible ones do.
“On the Web, a well-attended blog has thousands of readers.”
Many of these readers are also extraordinarily knowledgeable. They are more than able and willing to point out mistakes. The typical newspaper fact checker cannot even begin to compete. I also suspect that many of them are mere kids who recently entered the profession.
Hi Roger,
Your little post is full of errors. I’ve counted at least 100 so far. Its my little secret though, I won’t tell you where they are.
God I love the web.
James
“Its my little secret though, I won’t tell you where they are. ”
Shouldn’t that be “It’s my little secret though. I won’t tell you where they are.”?
Two mistakes in one sentence – not terrible in this day and age.
Granted, newspaper technology is inherently inferior to web technology in terms of corrections, including both speed and placement. But, still, over the years newspapers have gone out of their way to make an already limited technology as useless and ineffective as possible. Corrections in tiny print, in obscure portions of the paper, in wording so terse as to be meaningless were always the norm and not the exception. Even as a child I recognized the inherent unfairness of correcting a big, splashy front page story in a little blurb in the lower corner of page 2. I don’t know who they thought they were fooling. As has been said before, the media is just about the worst profession at being forthcoming when they make a mistake. If they had held themselves to the same standard as they held others over the years, their correction procedures would have been vastly different. Perhaps the web’s ability to have instant feedback and correction of errors alone is worth all the effort that went into creating it. It’s a huge step forward. (For most everyone except Dan Rather, of course.)
What an interesting new header including:
4. Hate speech is not tolerated here.
My copy of Webster did not have “hate speech” as an entry. Will a definition be forthcoming? It’s not the First of April so what is going on? Did Pajamas Media hire its first attorney? Is it an Obama birthday present?
Burying a correction in a different section of a different issue of the paper, knowing full well most people won’t see it and most who do won’t be able to determine the importance or relevance of the correction is superior to placing the correction within the same post and emphasizing it as a change right there in the text?
Good to know.
John, corrections in blogs are usually made at the end of the corrected entry under the title of “UPDATE” or “CORRECTIONS”. Both lefty and righty bloggers tend to do this. I am surprised that you have never noticed this.
“4. Hate speech is not tolerated here.
My copy of Webster did not have “hate speech” as an entry. Will a definition be forthcoming? It’s not the First of April so what is going on? Did Pajamas Media hire its first attorney? Is it an Obama birthday present?”
I second that sentiment. Hate speech is a meaningless term and the sooner it dies the better. It’s just PC garbage run amok. Is that hateful?