A passage from Jesse Froehling’s story (spotted by Romenesko) in the Sept. 17 edition of Seattle Weekly brought back memories:
Mark Powell finds mistakes everywhere he looks. National monuments, scholarly texts, museums, The Washington Post, The New York Times: All have drawn the attention of Powell’s rabid, error-spotting eye. Powell will leave you seven-minute voicemails about these errors. When you call him back, he’ll tell you how good he is at finding them–in great detail. When after two and a half hours you finally manage to hang up the phone, you’ll vow never to speak with Mark Powell again. Then he’ll call, and you’ll listen. Because the thing is, Mark Powell is always right.
In 2006 and 2007, Powell and I had several long conversations about his fact-checking hobby. He had been spending his spare time spotting errors in the Washington Post and sending his findings to the paper. Powell had pages and pages of notes, some of which he sent to me. He also told me the Post had cancelled his subscription. (Powell forwarded me emails from the circulation department that appeared to confirm this.)
Powell undeniably has a talent for fact-checking. He demonstrated this time and again. We spoke on an off for a few months and also discussed the possibility of having him write a column or two for this site. I wanted him to produce some new checking and write about it here; he felt I should publish his previous work. It ended with me trying to convince him to start his own website. I also wrote about him in the Regret the Error book. Here’s an excerpt:
In October 2006, I was introduced to one dedicated independent fact-checker via e-mail. The subject line of the message seemed spam-like enough: “Perhaps the most important inquiry you could get.” I came close to deleting it before having a quick read.
“I’m just getting familiar with your site,” it read. “Bravo for highlighting the errors, egregious and/or just silly, that big papers make and admit. But at my first glance, you don’t seem to deal in a yet-more-important issue: the uncorrected errors constantly and permanently disinforming the public.”
The writer, Mark Powell, then outlined his months of work fact checking one U.S. newspaper. His conclusion was:
THIS IS THE BIGGEST UN-/UNDERREPORTED SCANDAL IN U.S. JOURNALISM. While the chattering class ever harps on so-and-so’s political bias, real and imagined, sheer topical and journalistic INCOMPETENCE is destroying print’s last hope in the electronic age, viz. acknowledged credibility/authority superiority.
Powell lives in Virginia and his paper of choice is the Washington Post. As far as he is concerned, the paper’s corrections “represent a very tiny fraction of the paper’s ‘correctable’ errors. Fact is nearly none of the thousand-odd errors I’ve cataloged—probably less than 2 percent— were ever corrected.”
… [Powell] was as focused and dedicated an external fact-checker as I’ve come across, and no doubt a thorn in the Post’s side since he regularly e-mailed editors with his findings. I told him he struck me as the kind of person who would have been well suited to the job of proofreader. Too bad it no longer exists.
The Seattle Weekly article is, as far as I’m concerned, an accurate portrayal of Powell and his work. It details his fact-checking prowess, the aggressive way he demands corrections (and jobs at newspapers), and his colourful way of speaking and writing. It’s nice to hear that Powell’s still doing his thing, even if the targets of his work are (understandably) frustrated with him. From the piece:
… Furthermore, Powell has been such a thorn in The Washington Post’s side that the paper has canceled his subscription—for life, he claims. And in late August, Powell wrote to Greg Brock, senior editor in charge of corrections at The New York Times. In his communiqué, Powell points out errors in three film reviews, and then essentially asks for a job: “Whether as fulltime editor or some type of outside associate, I want to find a place, if such exists, where facts, performance and principle outrank politics and personalities—where the best at something can be valued and rewarded for being that, which advances the outlet’s mission. I’m advised there is no such place, including the Times. Recent years’ general news indicates you’re in worse shape in important ways than the Post. But I won’t know till I probe there.”
Brock wrote back via e-mail, asking Powell to “take a deep breath and listen,” noting that Powell’s conduct was hurting his cause. “My own assessment—after hearing from you so far—is that you are undercutting yourself,” said Brock.
On Aug. 25, Powell responded: “It may not make you tremble, but with more editors in both America and Canada now asking me for diverse episodes from my trail, you can bet I’ll be showing some clip including this sorry little episode about my first glances at the New York Times. In fact, I think the three for three start, and your attitude in reply as soon as it was clear that I really did back up my words, will be a useful vignette.”
I’ll note that Greg Brock and I have met in person and also once spoke at the same event. Brock spends a good part of his day communicating with the public and tracking down corrections. He’s used to taking heat from a variety of people and is remarkably good-natured and professional about it. But, obviously, Powell’s not your average reader.
