Washington Post Learns The Importance Of Fact Checking... And Reading The Comments
from the keep-up dept
On November 26th (Thanksgiving), the Washington Post put up an article about the group Public Enemy and its efforts to help the homeless in DC. Nice enough. However, there was one oddity in the article. It claimed that the band's famous song 911 is a Joke was about the attacks of September 11th. Yes, this is a song that was released in 1990. And if you've ever heard it, you know that it's about the phone number you call for emergencies. I mean the first line of the song is "I dialed 911 a long time ago....".Now, I guess this is a mistake that anyone could make if they were totally unfamiliar with Public Enemy or its music -- but you would think that someone writing an article about the band would at least learn a little about the music it released. Furthermore, we're constantly told about how the mainstream press is important because they have fact checkers. Apparently, they took Thanksgiving off.
But, a bigger point is brought forth by Mathew Ingram who points out that people in the comments of the article pointed out the mistake really quickly and it took an entire week for the Washington Post to get around to making a correction.
Now, everyone makes mistakes now and again, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it does demonstrate a few things. Just claiming you have fact checkers doesn't make you significantly more accurate at times. Separately, we've pointed out in the past how bad newspapers seem to be with actually engaging with commenters on their site, and this highlights why they're making a big mistake. Yes, it's work. Yes, sometimes there can be a lot of junk in the comments, but you can also learn a lot -- such as when you've made a huge mistake.
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Filed Under: 911, comments, fact checking, public enemy
Companies: washington post
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Also, the Washington Post raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. I will be back in 7 days to make sure my comment is correct.
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Nine One One
Bonus idiot points, 911 is still a joke in DC.
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It doesn't take more than a second to realize that the correction was published one week later, and appeared in the same "local living" section that appears (are you ready) once a week (every Thursday).
More moral outrage where none is merited?
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Oh yeah, we don't want to forget the people who have the "Thursday Only" subscriptions. Good point.
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The correction online would be nice, but being that it is a print paper, putting the correction in print is the right choice.
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DDo you have a 'monthly only' service? Do you even subscribe to a paper?
Damn dude, try harder.
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The Local Living is a supplimental section added once a week into the paper. It isn't there every day.
The made an error in one edition, and published a retraction in the next edition. Gee, Wired does that, but because of lead time it can take 3 months. I guess Chris Anderson is a bad man as a result, right?
Sheesh, you guys never stop, do you?
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The online edition is nothing but the stories that have made it to the print edition. The correction made it online at the same time it made it into print. There is no special online edition.
All I can say is if you guy are going to fight so hard about something like this, it makes me understand why you spend so long yelling and screaming about other stuff.
This is such a basic idea, I can't imagine why you guys are so clueless.
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*sigh* I think you are just being an idiot to bait me. You can't be that naturally stupid.
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Me thinks you guys aren't paying attention. Perhaps Mike can invite Chris Anderson over to explain how they do corrections at Wired (3 months later).
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they can put the original print in one window and put the correction in another. It's not rocket science, it's common sense. Stop making a galaxy out of an atom.
"Should they immediately run after their clients with a printed change too?"
No, they simply correct the printed version during the next edition.
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And?
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I'd love to see the Washington Post try to defend the delay in court, otherwise.
"Oh, yes, we were notified of the issue right away, but we wanted to make sure that the misinformation and libelous statements were thoroughly accurate with all other versions first!"
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The band argued, there would be a retraction made remarkably in a similar location and place to the way it was done this time. Notice, and it's important, that the original story was NOT edited.
You guys will never learn that the internet isn't all that.
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Newspapers do have fact checkers...
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Shifting Paradigms
All news organization that want to survive should be embracing an online strategy. It is clear that the old, broken, outdated business models that are preventing progress will go the way of the buggy whip industry because even when the new is attempted, it is done so with contempt and neglected, as in this case.
“If you want to make minor, incremental changes and improvements, work on practices, behavior or attitude. But if you want to make significant, quantum improvement, work on paradigms.” - Stephen R. Covey - The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
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I'd imagine that their "game" would be dropped quite quickly after that.
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Surely that should be 24/7/52? Or 24/365?
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I think 24/365 is best. The only time that's inadequate is for leap periods of time (ie days and seconds). But 24/7 still sounds better.
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* * * * * johnqpublic /usr/bin/consuming-news-content
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* * * * * reporter /usr/bin/updated-news-content24-365
But since most people are freeloaders, they get access to what is paid for in the print edition, nothing else.
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Again, because you don't want to understand how things end up on their website, you aren't going to understand why the correction came out when it did. I can't stop you from being a moron.
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1) Attach an RSS reader to the comments on your newspaper's website (I assume you work for one, it has a website, and it has an RSS feed for the comments).
2) Filter the reader's results for "error" and "mistake".
3) Read all of these - they may pay off.
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Simple, no?
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Oh, wait, someone has to put it there. That some someone is perfectly capable of changing it.
Keep grasping at stupidity, it's amusing.
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