The common problem with fact-checking is a misplaced reverence for “expertise” as a substitute for hard-nosed reporting and independent evaluation. So here are a few friendly suggestions for better fact-checking: Reporters do not represent the establishment, they should be suspicious of it; politicians who seem reasonable may not be; politicians who depart from the Washington consensus may be saying something important. If you think you can even get to the truth of a complex, contentious issue with a couple of phone calls, you are kidding yourself and your readers. And don’t invent a “truth” where the truth is genuinely in dispute.

— via “How to Fix Fact-Checking”, a post on Forbes by John McQuaid. It comes in response to a recent piece by Mark Hemingway in the Weekly Standard, “Lies, Damned Lies, and ‘Fact Checking’”.

An excerpt from the Standard piece, which had the subhead “The liberal media’s latest attempt to control the discourse”:

The media establishment has largely rallied round the self-satisfied consensus that fact checking is a noble pursuit. Nonetheless there are signs of an impending crack-up. In their rush to hop on the fact-checking bandwagon, the media appear to have given little thought to what their new obsession says about how well or poorly they perform their jobs.

It’s impossible for the media to fact check without rendering judgment on their own failures. Seeing the words “fact check” in a headline plants the idea in the reader’s mind that it’s something out of the ordinary for journalists to check facts. Shouldn’t that be an everyday part of their jobs that goes without saying? And if they aren’t normally checking facts, what exactly is it that they’re doing?

As such, fact checking frequently involves one news organization publicly accusing competing organizations of malpractice. Instead of newsroom watercooler kvetching and burying subtle digs in the eleventh paragraph, friendly fire is breaking out into the open.

*Correction December 2, 2011: The orignal version of this post’s headline mistakenly used the word “be” instead of “but”. (“Not a Muslim, be he makes fun of them”) It has been corrected, and thanks to Roger Green for spotting the typo!

So what will happen to Reader Magazine, “Southern California’s best coupon, calendar & news magazine,” which was recently exposed for repeated, brazen plagiarism? Columbia Journalism Review published a lengthy takedown that lays out a solid case against the publication. Here’s the bottom line:

Yet Reader, the oddly-titled, quarterly coupon magazine of Southern California, is a completely different beast. As evidenced by its tendency to raid journalism’s grave circa 2006, Reader is not on this frantic publishing hamster wheel. Its plagiarism is not isolated to a few sentences or a choice turn of phrase. It’s not the work of a rogue reporter trying to get ahead, or an overwhelmed reporter trying to keep up. It is the whole scale ripping off of others’ work.

Reader is a mailed advertiser—its website boasts it “now has a larger circulation than the paid circulation of nearly every newspaper in California”—that was founded on the principle “keep the price as low as possible, and the quality as high as possible.” Its website is clearly geared towards its advertisers. That’s fitting: the Reader’s advertisers do not sustain its journalism; its “journalism” is a strategy to sustain its advertisers. Plagiarism is its bold, bald business model—and it has been this way since at least 2008.

Besides a smattering of local content, a quick sampling of the last three years’ of issues would suggest all other content is taken from somewhere else.

The CJR report by Erika Fry is jaw dropping. It also includes this interaction with the man behind Reader:

Chris Theodore, founder and publisher of Reader, wasn’t up for explaining. When contacted by CJR, Theodore refused to grant a phone interview or respond to e-mailed questions, and instead sent an e-mail threatening a lawsuit if we pursued the story. He also accused of this reporter of conspiring in a “smear campaign” with an individual “who seeks to speciously discredit our much loved publication, and is using your institution for this purpose.”

Thanks, Daniel!

Dear Members and Readers,

Please accept our sincere apologies for the headline in today’s Tech Alert: “With the Arduino, Now Even Your Mom Can Program.” The actual title of the article is “The Making of Arduino.”

I’m an IEEE member, and a mom, and the headline was inexcusable, a lazy, sexist cliché that should have never seen the light of day. Today we are instituting an additional headline review process that will apply to all future Tech Alerts so that such insipid and offensive headlines never find their way into your in-box.

Spectrum’s insistence on editorial excellence applies to all its products, including e-mail alerts. Thank you for bringing this error to our attention. If you have any additional comments or recommendations, do not hesitate to contact me or other members of the editorial staff.

Sincerely yours,

Susan Hassler
Editor in Chief
IEEE Spectrum

Thanks, Craig!

Here’s the offending piece of copy (page 13), which was obviously written in jest but also beats the whole embezzlement joke to death:

Thanks, Jason!

In our article on October 15th on the prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, titled “Israel and Palestine: An extraordinary exchange rate”, we wrongly referred to Mustafa Barghouti as a prisoner unlikely to be freed, whereas we meant Marwan Barghouti, whom we also mentioned as a possible future Palestinian leader. We apologise sincerely to Mustafa Barghouti, a widely respected Palestinian politician and analyst, who is not in jail. Link

Thanks, Daniel!

The above editor’s note was placed atop a piece by Howard Kurtz.The original version of his story included this quote from Pelosi:

I think you need to talk about how poorly they [the White House] do on message. They can’t see around corners; they anticipate nothing.

Pelosi never said that. How did it get in the piece? Here’s how a Daily Beast spokesman explained the error:

The article, Behind Obama’s Populist Makeover, included a comment erroneously attributed to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, criticizing the administration’s political messaging. The writer misread notes of an interview conducted by a colleague. The error has been corrected, and we’ve apologized to Nancy Pelosi’s office.

Yeah, kind of vague. Much like the editor’s note. Here’s a better explanation from Politico:

In fact, Kurtz never interviewed Pelosi for the story, but was the lead writer on a story pulling together reporting from a group of reporters that included Lois Romano, who had interviewed Pelosi earlier for a profile that ran in Newsweek/The Daily Beast on September 25th. During that interview, Pelosi said some things that fit the theme of today’s story – about Obama’s return to populism – and so Romano turned over some of her unused quotes to Kurtz for his piece.

Somewhere in the hand-off, however, there was a miscommunication, according to several Newsweek sources. Notes that framed the interview were misinterpreted as part of the transcript.

While the story itself lists the contributing reporters at the bottom and does not imply that Kurtz talked to Pelosi, the deck head – presumably written by another editor – makes it seem like Kurtz interviewed Pelosi, further compounding the confusion.

This is the second notable lapse under Kurtz’s byline this year. In January he (reluctantly) admitted that he confused Rep. Darrell Issa’s spokesman, Kurt Bardella, for Issa during an interview.

Update Oct. 3, 2011: Erik Wemple’s post about the mistake pointed me to this tweeted correction from Kurtz:

Wemple makes the valid point that, aside from the above tweet, the journalists involved in this incident haven’t offered any kind of explanation. All we got was a comment from a spokesperson. That’s not the right kind of accountability.

Writes Wemple:

Time for some collegialism at the Daily Beast. Whoever bears the blame for the misattribution should come forth and accept the foul, in the manner of a basketball player who hacks another and raises a hand to acknowledge the mistake. The closest we have to that scenario right now is a Kurtz tweet saying, in part, “We regret the error.” That leaves a whole crew of Beastians taking the fall for this problem. Not fair.

Another point here: Kurtz, Solomon, Stone, Clift, Romano — how many decades of journo experience do those people have among them? When their collective opus falls into disrepute, though, who’s answering for it? Andrew Kirk. Andrew Kirk? I am sure he’s an amazing Director of Public Relations for Newsweek & The Daily Beast. He responded swiftly to my request for the official line on this incident. Yet when journalistic veterans commit an error, journalistic veterans should account for that error. They’re paid enough to cram that task into their job descriptions. Speak up.

An investigation by the FM has revealed that certain sections of the article “Dilemma about horns”, which was part of the magazine’s cover story titled “War on rhinos” in the September 9 edition of the magazine, were copied from a Bloomberg Businessweek article titled “Saving the rhino through sacrifice” written by Brendan Borrell and published on December 9 2010.
Following the investigation, a staff member, who failed to attribute the material from the Bloomberg Businessweek article, has left the employ of the FM.
The material submitted by Richard Slater-Jones, the main author of the rhino articles, is in no way implicated in this matter.
The FM unreservedly apologises to Bloomberg Businessweek and to Mr Borrell. The FM also apologises to its readers for failing to identify that this material was copied from Bloomberg Businessweek.
The FM does not under any circumstances condone or approve of its staff members copying material from other publications or sources without attributing the original material. It is contrary to the publication’s code of conduct and the ethics of the journalism profession.

Journalism.co.za has more background on the theft, reporting that Financial Mail associate editor Sharda Naidoo is the staffer in question. The site got comment from Naidoo:

“Unfortunately, as a result of the legal options that I am considering, I have been advised that it may jeopardise my possible legal claims to respond fully regarding the circumstances that led to my resignation.

“The last few months have been the most distressing of my career. Unfortunately, internal processes at BDFM have been unable to manage and resolve the situation, and I was left with no alternative but to tender my resignation.

“I have always aspired to the highest journalistic standards and believe my work has lived up those standards.

“I am very grateful, however, for the support I have had and continue to enjoy from my former colleagues at the Financial Mail and BDFM, and other members of the media community.”

The Mails’ offending story (or apology) isn’t online as far as I can tell, but here’s the Businessweek story.

So, here’s what happened…

Music Week recently conducted an interview with the utterly charming and mind-blowingly successful songwriter RedOne. For quite a lengthy period he talked about how he had recently been in the studio with Dive Bella Dive, One Direction, JLS and Cher Lloyd. All great stuff.

After a (slight, honestly) pause, he then discussed how he will be working on a collaboration between Cher and Lady Ga-Ga. Transcribing the interview we put two and two together and came up with…. well, two actually, but the wrong two.

The Cher to whom RedOne referred was, of course, living legend Cher. As in Sonny and Cher. As in Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves. As in Do You Beliiiiieeeeeve In Life After Love. Not Cher as in Lloyd. As in did quite well in X-Factor and has had one, admittedly huge, hit record …

So, as we say, that’s what happened. Music Week has, of course, been ‘flamed’ online for it, and we accept all the barbs and brickbats in good grace.

Tomorrow won’t be any better than today, as the print edition will hit your desks with that completely erroneous story on, you guessed it, the front page. Ignore it. Please. Concentrate on the excellent news about record-breaking single sales, maybe. That’s all totally true, promise.

We have, of course, apologised to all involved. And now, dear reader, we apologise to you.

And you know which Cher track keeps going round and round in our collective consciousness. Altogether now: ‘If I could turn back time…’

Thanks, Catherine!

Misunderstandings between the French and visiting British vacationers are a traditional feature of summers in France. But did a British malentendu over another French summer staple — a fictional series of articles in Le Monde — contribute to a mysterious sell-off in French bank stocks last week?

As for The Mail on Sunday, a senior executive, who insisted that he not be identified because he is not an official spokesman, dismissed talk of a link to the series in Le Monde. Neither the paper’s reporters nor its sources had been aware of “End of the Line for the Euro,” the executive said.

—via “French Suspect Articles in Le Monde Set Off Market Panic”, a story in the New York Times. Here’s the relevant Mail apology.

Update August 18, 2011: Stinky Journalism reports that Agence France-Presse has retracted a report it published that linked the Le Monde fiction with stock market activity:

Agence France-Presse (AFP) retracted a story suggesting that French newspaper Le Monde was “the source of false information that has largely contributed to Société Générale’s stock market drop,” the New York Times reported.

In an e-mail to StinkyJorunalism AFP’s editor-in-chief Florence Biedermann confirmed that the AFP “killed a story linking Le Monde’s fiction series to Société Générale’s stock market drop.”

Biedermann noted that the retraction was issued 12 hours after the story was released on AFP’s French wire. “We explained to our clients that it established an erroneous link between LeMonde’s fiction, a Mail on Sunday’s article and Société Générale’sstock market drop,” Biedermann wrote. Biedermann noted that the AFP “asked our web clients to withdraw the story from their site” as well.