MISTAKEN NATION: Modern Journalism And the Proliferation of Errors. Well, those layers of editors and fact-checkers were never that great. But now they’ve mostly been laid off.

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times recalls a threefer from a single campaign trail dispatch last year. His story misspelled Tammy Faye Bakker’s last name (“Baker”), misspelled Hillary Clinton’s first name (“Hilary”) and reported the wrong call letters for a TV station. “I should have done better,” says Gabriel, “especially since I later wrote a piece about [Rep. Michele] Bachmann’s penchant for playing fast and loose with facts.”

Ya think? But, you know, the real reason for declining trust in journalism isn’t honest error — it’s dishonest reporting.