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.

Thanks, James!

“With these two quotes in mind (and while acknowledging that both these women are gorgeous and don’t really resemble transvestites at all), we of course have an obligation to ask: who’s the tranniest of them all?” read the post.

The site soon heard from LGBT groups that wanted the poll removed. Huffington Post did so this week. Here’s the resulting editor’s note:

This entry has been removed from The Huffington Post. In reporting actress Sofia Vergara’s comments comparing her appearance to that of a transgender individual, the story adopted an inappropriate tone. We regret the error and apologize to anyone who was offended.

GLAAD blogged about the poll’s removal:

But make no mistake – despite the fluffiness of this piece, this word is a transphobic, discriminatory slur, commonly directed at members of the transgender community who are very much NOT okay with its use. LGBT advocates slammed the website for its decision to use this slur, and readers asked the Huffington Post to remove it.

The original poll page was captured by EqualityMatters.org:

It seems PJ Media greatly misunderstood what their source(s) had told them. Slate’s Dave Weigel highlighted the major climbdown and correction from PJ Media. He also then gave birth to the amusing #PJMcorrections hashtag where people are sharing hilarious, most politics-themed corrections. More on that below. But here’s the correction PJ Media appended to the orignal story:

(A previous version of this story mentioned that a source witnessed Cain and the woman entering a taxi together. This was incorrect.One source had told PJ Media she found herself in bed but because we could not find a second source it had been deleted. Another editor took the earlier version by error.

The previous version also mentioned that the woman awoke in Cain’s bed — the source only claimed that the woman awoke in Cain’s apartment.

The previous version incorrectly attributed comments from one source to the other source.)

That’s not a correction, it’s an Abbott and Costello routine. Weigel had a different take:

That’s not a correction. That’s a massacre. I’m half expecting the next update to report that the man in question was not Herman Cain, but the popular comic actor Charlie Murphy, and that the woman was actually a Japanese body pillow.

It should be a retraction. They published information they know they can’t back up. It should never have gotten out there, but it did. And now PJ Media look incompetent and confused about what they do or don’t have in terms of information about Cain. It renders the entire story useless.

It seems Weigel and myself aren’t the only ones who think the PJ Media correction is ridiculous. He managed to kick off the #PJMcorrections meme on Twitter and folks have joined in. Below is a roundup of the tweets.

I must also of course point out this is the second corrections-related Twitter meme of note. 2009 saw #washingtonpostcorrections take off. I wrote a column about that meme, which was a result of 2009′s correction of the year.

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!

In typical Politico fashion, they moved quickly after being alerted to a problem with one of Marr’s stories. The New York Times emailed Wednesday night; Marr had resigned by Thursday and the editor’s note went online that night. Politico treated this with the seriousness it required. Its two top editors, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, were frank in saying, “Material published in our pages borrowed from the work of others, without attribution, in ways which we cannot defend and will not tolerate.”

They also made this declaration:

Our standard at POLITICO is to be candid with ourselves and our readers when we err, and to move swiftly, fairly, and transparently to ensure that we maintain public trust.

With the publication of that note, it seems, Politico feels it fulfilled its duty to need to be candid and transparent. Harris and VandeHei have since refused to answer any questions about what happened.

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post tried to get answers:

… Politico higher-ups refuse to discuss the matter. Politico Executive Editor Jim VandeHei declined to comment on whether the site would show its work by publishing a side-by-side comparison of Marr’s original pieces vs. the purloinees. Chief Operating Officer Kim Kingsley writes, “Sorry, but we are not going beyond the letter to readers.”

Actually, it looks like Wemple tried twice:

When asked if he could chat about these events, Jim VandeHei, Politico’s executive editor, e-mailed the Erik Wemple Blogger to announce that the editor’s note “speaks for itself.”
To a point. The note discloses the violations. It asserts Politico’s values. And it includes links to the stories in which a Politico investigation found problems.
What it doesn’t do is facilitate an assessment of what happened.

Julie Moos at Poynter tried:

Politico is not saying whether it has completed its investigation into Marr’s work after finding seven instances of plagiarism, or whether newsroom staff are provided (or will be provided) ethical guidelines to follow in their work. Chief Operating Officer Kim Kingsley said the Allbritton-owned organization will not comment beyond the letter to readers.

As did the Blaze:

When asked what he would tell readers who may have lost at least some faith in the publication’s credibility, Politico’s executive editor Jim VandeHei didn’t respond.

Other journalists probably tried and failed. (It’s worth noting Politico wasn’t so gun shy when Slate accused it of poor corrections practices.)

Imagine this scenario: a city department uncovers major misconduct by an employee and proceeds to issue a press release detailing the issue. Or, to bring it into Politico’s sphere, imagine a federal politician uncovers misconduct by a staffer and issues a press release.

Now imagine the politician refused to answer any additional questions from the press.

“I’m going to let the release speak for itself,” they tell journalists.

Not acceptable. We in the press would push for answers. Politico would push for answers.

This is no different. If we won’t be accountable for our failings and worst moments, then we lose the legitimacy to demand accountability from others.

This basic sense of fairness and transparency is never more important than when “a friend and colleague,” as Harris and VandeHei described Marr, fails or lets themselves and others down. If we aren’t willing to take the heat and answer questions when things are at their worst, how can we demand that of others?

The editor’s note hints that Marr was popular and well liked in the newsroom. (“Marr is a friend and colleague who has produced much outstanding work here and elsewhere.”) I’m speculating, but I get the sense part of the reason for Politico’s silence is they want to protect her. That’s a natural reaction when it comes to a colleague you’ve grown to like and respect, even if they break your rules and bring dishonor upon your organization. It’s okay to to be human and to feel something. It’s okay to admit that, too.

Jack Shafer wrote that these situations call for an editor with “a heart like leather. Not freshly tanned leather—all supple and yielding like a baby’s bum—but like an abandoned baseball glove that’s been roasting in the Sonoran Desert for five or six years. Only those who are hard of heart can properly deal with the plagiarists who violate the journalistic code.”

Yeah, be tough. Tough like an abandoned baseball glove to do the right thing — and then tough enough to answer questions about something that hurts your tanned leather heart.

Not anymore. At some (recent) point, the site’s corrections page was changed to remove all current and archival corrections. The page now contains boilerplate text informing readers that corrections are placed on the offending piece of content. Meaning: you can’t also find them on this corrections page anymore.

Why the change?

This is the second time I’ve made note of Salon’s corrections page. The first was in 2005 when the site removed the link to its corrections page from the homepage. Now, six years later, it’s eliminated corrections from its corrections page. Not a good trend.

I’d prefer to see news organizations increasing the availability of online corrections, rather than reducing it.

Good people of Salon, I call upon you to put the corrections back on your corrections page, and restore the link form your homepage.

The live blogs were some of the worst offenders. Here’s what the New York Times called its coverage:

Note the iPhone 5 language in that intro text. It’s a done deal, as far as the Times is telling its readers. Here’s The Guardian:

Note the photo caption. The iPhone 5 is here, now let’s guess about the features!

No.

I get that there’s big competition to attract the massive Apple-related search traffic on a day like today. Sure, some folks will search for iPhone 5. But maybe they’re doing that in part because the media treated it as a foregone conclusion?

Declaring there to be an iPhone 5 before it’s actually announced (or not) is wrong on several fundamental levels.

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.

… On September 18th, we featured a story titled “Harlem’s New Renaissance”. The article was taken from Jenna McKnight’s article “Harlem’s New Renaissance” featured on Arch Record on August 25th. ArchDaily’s article written by Irina Vinnitskaya took the ideas proposed by Jenna and several of the quotes and information she used, accompanied by a link back to Architectural Record and photography credits, but failed to properly credit the person who came up with the original story idea, Jenna McKnight. Our mistake, a big one.

When Jenna noticed this (as Arch Record constantly reviews our content to syndicate it on their website and on their daily newsletter) she was very upset and contacted me immediately, but given my low email access due to travelling I saw the note a few hours later rather than instantaneously. Immediately upon receiving the email and noticing the improper crediting, I took down the article redirecting it back to Arch Record. In the meanwhile, Jenna posted a story on Arch Record stating that we plagiarized her story with all the given facts.

I reached out to Jenna, told her that there had been no bad intentions and gave her my apologizes as ArchDaily’s editor in chief and assumed my responsibility. Jenna replied, and she was ok with my apologies …

Stinky Journalism has more:

Arch Daily’s executive editor David Basulto responded and told StinkyJournalism via e-mail that the site did publish a report that was “based on” an article by Architecture Record’s Jenna McKnight. Basulto stated that the article wasn’t “a copy/paste, but the ideas and quotes were taken from hers.” McKnight’s Sept. 19 blogpost accusing Arch Daily of plagiarism described the Arch Daily post of being essentially a direct lift of her story minus “a few minor modifications.” McKnight noted that Arch Daily also published Architecture Record’s photos, which were attributed to Architecture Record.

Basulto noted that while Arch Daily did link to Architectural Record, “we weren’t explicit that this was Jenna’s article and thoughts, a huge mistake from our part and for that we are deeply sorry.” He expressed sympathy with McKnight’s “frustration,” noting that Arch Daily has had to deal with other sites “constantly scrapping and reproducing our content and images.”

Thanks, Jim!

Thanks, James!

In the Aug. 8 “Well-Traveled,” a map mislabeled Germany and Austria. Link to both