The Feb 1 story headlined “Backdoor taxes to hit middle class” is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration’s budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story. Link
More background from Gawker and Reuters’ Good, Bad and Ugly blog.
An error was inadvertently committed in the report by our Special Correspondent published in the front page of The Hindu under the headline “Two editors of TV 5 arrested in Hyderabad.” The report wrongly stated that TV9 was among the three channels booked by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) in connection with the telecast of a report that led to attacks on Reliance groups’ outlets in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday.
TV9 was not among the channels booked or involved in any way in the criminal cases registered.
We retract the wrong statement published in our newspaper, deeply regret the error, and apologise to TV9 for including its name in the report. Link
Canwest News Service described Helmut Oberlander as a “Nazi collaborator” in a story about a Nov. 18 court ruling that ordered the federal Cabinet to reconsider revoking his citizenship. Neither the Canadian government nor the Federal Court has stated that Oberlander was a collaborator. A judge ruled in 2000 that Oberlander worked, lived, and travelled as an interpreter for a Nazi mobile death squad and, although there was no evidence he participated in atrocities, he must have been aware of them. Further, the use of a file photograph of the Auschwitz concentration camp in the National Post to illustrate the story was inappropriate. The Post retracts the description of Oberlander in the story as a Nazi collaborator and apologizes for the use of the unrelated photo. Link
The article titled “JFF doc warns athletes about dietary supplements” which appeared in Sunday Observer of November 1, which claimed that two products – Visalus’ Vi-Shape and Neuro energy drink – were tested and approved by local anti-doping authority JADCO on behalf of the Premier League Clubs Association (PLCA), was erroneous.
The PLCA is seeking to set the record straight by claiming that: “The Jamaica Anti-doping Commission (JADCO) at no time tested or approved the supplement Vi-Shape or any other supplement for use by the PLCA, but rather confirmed that the ingredients listed on the products’ containers did not appear on the WADA list of banned substances 2009.”
JADCO, for their part in clarifying the matter, stated: “JADCO at no time tested or approved the supplement Vi-Shape or any other supplement for use by the Premier League Clubs Association.
“JADCO was approached by the Premier League Club Association with a list of ingredients said to be constituents of the supplement Vi-Shape for us to verify whether or not these substances were on WADA’s list of prohibited substances. JADCO verified that the ingredients did not appear on the list of banned substances, but that verification was based on the following disclaimer: JADCO does not endorse any product. We can only verify if the substances presented on the label in a particular product are prohibited. Verification is based on the ingredients of the given products presented to us.
This assessment is only valid for the Supplement Facts Sheet attached by the manufacturer. We cannot endorse or verify any hidden substances or ingredients but only verify the supplemental facts and cannot be held accountable or responsible for adverse findings due to hidden substances. As a result of the clarifications from both bodies, The Observer would like to withdraw any part of the story that inferred that the Visalus products were tested and approved by JADCO.
We regret the error and any inconvenience that may have accrued as a result.
On July 24, 2009, Cityfile published an article entitled “Jim Dolan To Kill Christmas In July?” which contained speculation on the fate of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes. Click here for an important update on this article.
On July 27, 2009, Cablevision, Madison Square Garden, and Cablevision chief executive James Dolan filed a defamation lawsuit against Cityfile in New York State Supreme Court. We now realize that we could have done more to ensure that all relevant facts were included in the article. We have retracted the article and removed it from our website, and regret any negative and/or mistaken impressions that resulted from its publication. Cityfile and Madison Square Garden have since resolved all legal claims. And like all New Yorkers we’re extremely pleased to hear that the legendary show will remain an institution in this city for many years to come. Link
Gawker has some background here.
Thanks, Tom!
Due to an editing error, the Sept. 18 Yellowknifer article “No hate complaints registered in NWT” alleged that Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman had posted many of the messages that formed part of his Internet hate propaganda complaint against Marc Lemire and Craig Harrison. That allegation is false. Yellowknifer retracts that statement and apologizes to Mr. Warman without reservation.
A Howard Levitt column in the Financial Post on Wednesday regarding Kelly McDougald, the former chief executive of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., said the Ontario government should be “suing her for fraud for her own expense account abuse.” However, no evidence has arisen of abuse in Ms. McDougald’s expense account and the Post withdraws the statement. Link
In the January 2009 issue of The Washingtonian, we stated that Mr. Thomas J. Donohue sold shares of Sunrise Senior Living Inc. in 2008. The Washingtonian retracts those statements. They were not accurate. We regret those errors and any false impressions that those statements may have caused.
In that same issue of The Washingtonian, we stated that Paul and Terry Klaassen sold shares of Sunrise Senior Living Inc. in 2008. The Washingtonian retracts those statements as well, as they were not accurate. We regret the errors and any false impressions that those statements may have caused.
Poynter’s Amy Gahran has an interesting post up about a false report from the Press Association that moved its way around the web:
On Nov. 29, the story ran in Wales Online: “We thought we were safe… then CNN stepped in!” said the headline. As of this writing you can still find it listed in the site’s own search results — but the story itself is no longer available on Wales Online. According to excerpts of this mainstream news report that appeared on several sites, the now-vanished Wales Online story began:
“A South Wales couple caught in the Mumbai terror attacks claimed last night that CNN put their lives at risk by broadcasting where they were. Lynne and Kenneth Shaw, of Penarth, warned that terrorists were listening in to the media to pinpoint Western victims. Mrs. Shaw claimed the American cable TV channel had broadcast details of where they were at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel…”
Apparently, this particular claim of media irresponsibility wasn’t true. But when it first ran, even Tobin Harshaw of the New York Times repeated the allegation — although he did correct it this morning. That’s because the editor of Wales Online sent a note to Harbin (and conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, who harshly criticized CNN for it’s alleged misstep) which said:
“The story was taken from the Press Association news agency, who have since stated: ‘Press Association would like to make clear that the interviewee’s allegations that CNN broadcast details compromising her and her husband’s safety have since been clarified by the interviewee’s husband to Press Association as not valid.’ I would be grateful if you could post the above clarification. I should also let you know that the article has now been removed from WalesOnline.co.uk…”
Today Turner Broadcasting posted a CNN press release refuting the allegation. And Mediabistro’s TVNewser also ran updates with CNN’s refutation and the Press Association’s retraction.
According to CNN spokesperson Nigel Pritchard, when the Press Association contacted CNN for comment on the Shaw’s allegations, CNN issued a “holding statement” while they reviewed all their broadcast and streamed video from the relevant parts of the crisis. In the meantime, the Press Association account ran. When CNN found nothing to corroborate the Shaws’ alleged statements, they contacted the Press Association to refute those allegations. Shortly afterward, the Press Association story was retracted.
Instead of updating its article with the retraction, Wales Online simply removed the original story. Poof! Nothing to see here.
“Right now, the key media organizations involved are acting as if this never happened — to varying degrees — by making information about this story-gone-awry hard to find,” writes Gahran. “This is likely to confuse or frustrate Internet users, bloggers, and social media users who try to track down the truth, thus encouraging the spread of misinformation.”
This is an example of why scrubbing is such an unethical and fundamentally unprofessional practice. On the web, you can’t just pretend that a mistake never happened. It’s already been cached, blogged, linked… Wales Online and especially the Press Association have to make an effort to spread the correct information. That’s journalism.
Gahran also makes the point that CNN should do everything it can to make the correct information easily available:
Why not run a CNN.com story clarifying what the rumor was, that it is demonstrably false, and what CNN did to disprove it? Something that would be easy to find and link to? Pritchard says CNN has no plans to do this: “It’s not up to us to respond to false allegations.”
…That may have been true in an earlier era. But these days if you want to stop a rumor, your correction or refutation must be easily findable and linkable — because the rumor certainly will be.
UPDATE Dec 3: Amy Gahran added this information to her post today:
When I originally posted this story, I reported “Wales Online simply removed the article from their site. As far as I can tell by searching their site, they have not yet published a correction or explanation. It’s simply gone, and inbound links to it are now broken.” Since then, Wales Online posted this correction at a different URL. As of this writing, the URL of the original story still remains blank, with no forwarding to or indication of the correction. Also, I received e-mails from Wales Online editor Tim Horton and Press Association editor Jonathan Grun — both of whom simply confirmed that the Press Association story was “not valid” and had “been removed.” As of this writing, the Press Association site still appears to bear no mention of the story or the retraction.
These organizations are trying to disappear a mistake as if they’re some kind of news junta.
In our November 3 issue, we suggested that the actress Kelly Reilly was having a relationship with Guy Ritchie.
It is now clear from the further information that we have received that Ms. Reilly is engaged and there is and has been no romantic relationship between Kelly Reilly and Guy Ritchie. We apologize for any embarrassment caused to Ms. Reilly in our original report. Link
Critic Tom Sietsema should have recused himself from reviewing the Commissary, a restaurant featured in the Oct. 29 Food section. He and one of the restaurant’s owners had earlier had a personal relationship. The Washington Post regrets that he reviewed this restaurant, and will remove the review from its online archive. Link
This Editor’s Note was written about by the Washington City Paper, and the resulting story includes the text of an email sent by the owner of the Commissary. It’s notable for this passage (emphasis added):
We challenged Mr. Sietsema on his grievously negative assertions, his lack of disclosure and the simple fact that the article should never have been written. We insisted that recusing himself was the only proper and ethical thing to have done. He apologized for not recusing himself, nothing more.
All this was then turned over to his editor, Tom Shroder of The Washington Post Magazine. Mr. Shroder, understanding the ramifications of Mr. Sietsema’s actions offered a settlement; kill the story on the web immediately, print a retraction in Sunday’s paper, and that neither Mr. Sietsema nor any member of The Washington Post food team would ever write about any Eatwell DC restaurant again. What they would not do is apologize for the harm caused by Sietsema’s spurious comments. “The Washington Post doesn’t apologize” but “we will say we regret”.
Thanks, Greg!
The article “Fanning Flames: There is much at stake for Beijing, as Tibetan groups fighting for autonomy have been linked to US funding”, written by Ching Cheong and published in the South China Morning Post on April 24, 2008, incorrectly referred to the Trace Foundation as having ties to the United States Department of State and working with the United States government to incite protests on Tibet to embarrass Beijing. The Post is given to understand that the source for Mr Cheong’s article, F. William Engdahl, has retracted his article “Why Washington Plays ‘Tibet Roulette’ with China” and stated that it contained incorrect and inaccurate statements regarding the activities of the Trace Foundation. The Trace Foundation informed the South China Morning Post that it is an independent organisation which receives no suppport from the United States government or any other agency and has no political or religious agenda or affiliations.
For many years, the Mainichi Daily News, the English website of Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, was the place to go if you wanted to read salacious articles about the sexual habits of the Japanese. The stories, which were featured in the site’s “WaiWai” column, frequently stretched believability. Here’s a list of stories published on its site, as collected by the blog, The Truth From Japan (some links/headlines are from external sites that picked up on the Mainichi stories):
- “More moms going down, to ensure grades go up!”
- Japanese housewives do prostitution in the coin shower in suburbs.
- The nurse in Japan is lewder than the prostitute.
- 55% of the women in Japan sleep with men on the day at the first time of meet.
- Japanese teens are screwing like rabbits on viagra.
- The latest Japanese fad: hiring 70-year-old prostitutes.
- Also pre-teen prostitutes are still finding work in Japan.
- Japanese high school girls no-panty, just for kicks.
- Fast food sends schoolgirls into sexual feeding frenzy.
- There is a bestiality restaurant in Tokyo.
After what appears to be a thorough internal investigation, the paper yesterday issued an apology and announced that the website would “start over again.” (Credit to Fark for spotting the apology.)
This means the company has taken “punitive measures” against managers and staff responsible for the content and will, in effect, relaunch the website with a new focus and commitment to accuracy. From the paper’s apology:
…We continued to post articles that contained incorrect information about Japan and indecent sexual content. These articles, many of which were not checked, should not have been dispatched to Japan or the world. We apologize deeply for causing many people trouble and for betraying the public’s trust in the Mainichi Shimbun.
The Mainichi Newspapers took punitive measures on July 20 against Managing Director Yoshiyuki Watanabe, who previously served as general manager of the Multimedia Division, and another senior official, to hold them responsible as supervisors, in addition to those who were earlier punished.
We will take the following measures to prevent a recurrence of the problems pointed out to us through the criticism and opinions received from many readers, through our in-house investigation, and as indicated by the Open Newspaper Committee of experts:
On Aug. 1, we will reorganize the MDN Editorial Department, and on Sept. 1, under a new chief editor, the MDN will be transformed into a more news-oriented site. We will translate Mainichi Shimbun editorials and commentaries by prominent figures, such as “Jidai-no-Kaze” (Sign of the Times), and post them on the site in an effort to deepen the understanding of Japan among readers overseas.
At the same time, we will set up an advisory group to the MDN comprised of Megumi Nishikawa, an expert senior writer, and other staff writers specializing in international news coverage. The group will check the MDN’s editorial plans and the content of articles in the MDN.
We are determined to try our utmost to regain the public trust that we have lost as a result of this incident and rehabilitate the English site into one that can dispatch information about Japan to the world in an appropriate manner.
A second apology, also published yesterday and viewable below the first, offers additional details about how the paper will change the way it produces and checks articles. One priority is to “appoint a female employee as the new chief editor, based on our realization that the lack of a woman’s point of view, in addition to the lack of a checking system, helped to create a situation in which inappropriate articles continued to be published in the column.”
At the bottom of the page containing the apologies is a series of links to material from the paper’s investigation. It rivals the New York Times’ report on Jayson Blair as one of the most detailed and revelatory internal investigations of journalistic malfeasance. For example, you can read the findings of its internal investigative team, which lists “Defects in the checking system,” the “Absence of an editorial quality control system,” and “Deficiency in journalistic morals” as a few of the factors that contributed to the site’s failures.
There’s also a “Chronology of problems” and links to comments from the members of the paper’s Open Newspaper Committee (1, 2, 3, 4).
This could very well be the first time that a modern news organization has decided to “start over” due to irresponsible reporting.
Some additional reading:
A report carried on nzherald.co.nz on May 13 wrongly stated that David Oughton, who inquired into the actions of Mary Anne Thompson at the immigration service, had once been her boss at the Ministry of Justice and that questions had therefore been raised about his report’s impartiality.
Mr Oughton was never her employer, having finished as Secretary for Justice in July 1994 and Ms Thompson not joining the Office for Treaty Settlements, on secondment, until the following year.
The Herald retracts any suggestion that the impartiality of Mr Oughton’s report could thus be questioned and apologises to him for any distress caused by the report.
On Feb. 2, 2008, the Boston Herald reported that a member of the New England Patriots’ video staff taped the St. Louis Rams’ walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI. While the Boston Herald based its Feb. 2, 2008, report on sources that it believed to be credible, we now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed.
Prior to the publication of its Feb. 2, 2008, article, the Boston Herald neither possessed nor viewed a tape of the Rams’ walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, nor did we speak to anyone who had. We should not have published the allegation in the absence of firmer verification.
The Boston Herald regrets the damage done to the team by publication of the allegation, and sincerely apologizes to its readers and to the New England Patriots’ owners, players, employees and fans for our error. Link
The Boston Globe has a story mentioning the apology, and the Associated Press got comment from Patriots owner Robert Kraft:
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is pleased the Boston Herald apologized for a story that said his team videotaped a St. Louis Rams walkthrough before the 2002 Super Bowl.
Kraft said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press he doesn’t know why former New England video assistant Matt Walsh didn’t refute the story soon after it came out in early February, when the Patriots were preparing for this year’s Super Bowl.
Another bad Herald mistake from last month is here.
ON April 23 we reported that the fiancée of Gregg “Opie” Hughes, one half of the Opie and Anthony radio show, was involved in an X-rated sex video with MTV star Bam Margera. We reported that Hughes was taking legal action against a disgruntled ex-employee of the radio duo who had acquired the rights to the video. We have since learned that this information, supplied by Steppin’ Out’s Chaunce Hayden, was entirely incorrect. There is no sex tape. Further, Hughes’ fiancée has never met the MTV star. The Post sincerely regrets the error. Link
Thanks, Brian!
Gawker spotted this incredible error/correction in the Columbia Spectator, a student newspaper:
The paper subsequently retracted the piece. This text has replaced the article on the Spectator’s website:
Because this piece was based on unreliable sources we have decided to retract the article and remove it from the Web site. We appreciate all the letters we have received (one of which is printed in the 4/18/08 issue) and deeply apologize for the error.
This morning the Los Angeles Times issued a formal retraction for its March story about an assault on rapper Tupac Shakur. It had previously apologized for the article. (Regret post here.)
The apology did contain elements of a retraction, but it’s not a bad thing to see the paper follow up and drive home the point that it doesn’t stand behind the information and accusations contained in the story. (The piece has now been removed from the Times website.) That said, this retraction is primarily for legal reasons. The Times wants to make sure it has this on record in case any of those implicated in the article decide to pursue legal action. From the retraction:
The article, titled “An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War” and written by Times staff writer Chuck Philips, purported to relate “new” information about a 1994 assault on rap star Tupac Shakur, including a description of events contained in FBI reports.
The Times has since concluded that the FBI reports were fabricated and that some of the other sources relied on — including the person Philips previously believed to be the “confidential source” cited in the FBI reports — do not support major elements of the story.
Consequently, The Times is retracting the March 17 Web publications as well as a shorter version of the article that appeared on Page E1 in the March 19 Calendar section of the newspaper. Statements that Philips made in two online chats, on March 18 and 25, and on The Times’ Soundboard blog on March 21 also are being retracted.
It’s interesting to note how many things the Times has to retract: the online story, print story, two chats and a blog post. This shows the paper did a decent job of leveraging the story for its properties. Now that effort has come back to bite it in the butt. As time goes on, we’ll likely see more examples of papers issuing multi-part retractions for big, wrong stories that were parceled out over different web properties. Retractions are only going to get more complicated.
Among other things, the March 17 article and related Times publications reported that newly discovered information supported Shakur’s claims that associates of music executive Sean “Diddy” Combs orchestrated an attack in which Shakur was injured at the Quad Recording Studios in New York on Nov. 30, 1994.
The information, which came from the purported FBI reports and other sources, said that James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond, a talent manager; Jacques “Haitian Jack” Agnant, a figure on the New York hip-hop scene; and James Sabatino, purportedly one of Combs’ associates, arranged the assault on Shakur because they were angry that he had rejected overtures to sign with Combs’ Bad Boy Records.
The Times now believes that Sabatino fabricated the FBI reports and concocted his role in the assault as well as his supposed relationships with Combs, Rosemond and Agnant.
Consequently, The Times specifically retracts all statements in the article, and in its related publications, that state or suggest in any way that Rosemond, Agnant and Sabatino orchestrated or played any role in the assault on Shakur or that they lured him into an ambush at the Quad studios.
To the extent these publications could be interpreted as creating the impression that Combs was involved in arranging the attack, The Times wishes to correct that misimpression, which was neither stated in the article nor intended.
The Times also reported that Sabatino told Combs in advance that Shakur was going to be attacked. The Times now believes that Sabatino had no involvement in the attack and that he never spoke to Combs about it. Any statements or implications suggesting that Combs was given advance knowledge of the assault on Shakur, or played any role in it, are specifically retracted.
Those last few paragraphs seem to plead please don’t sue. But they’re also necessary because the article did have the effect of implicating several people in what could be called an attempted murder. That’s a serious accusation, and Sean Combs’ lawyer was frank in saying he wasn’t completely satisfied with the initial apology.
At the time, Howard Weitzman issued a statement saying that the “apology is, at best, a first step, but it doesn’t undo the false and defamatory nature of the story, or the suspicion and innuendo that Mr. Combs has had to endure due to these untruthful allegations and the irresponsible conduct of this particular reporter.”
We’ll see if the retraction satisfies Combs, but it doesn’t put the matter to rest. The paper had previously said it would walk back the cat to see how the story, which was built on fake documents provided by a scam artist, made it into print. We should all be waiting for that report, even if the lawyers aren’t.
Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren has had to backtrack on claims made in a couple of recent columns. From February 20:
A retraction. In my Sunday column, I wrote in passing about the kind of Shariah practised in Iran, “where a little boy caught stealing gets an arm amputated under the wheel of a truck.” Many, many, horrible things happen under Shariah in Iran, but that event, widely disseminated on the Internet with photos, wasn’t one of them. The photos were of a (disagreeable) magic act in that country, and the wrong captioning was exposed on the Little Green Footballs website, just after they first appeared, three years ago. Should have checked. Link
January 23:
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Normally the pundit who has committed a factual error leaves the correction to the shortest possible postscript at the end of his next column. But I’ve decided to lead with mine today. Not because the mistake was so ghastly – though it was pretty ghastly – but because it was instructive.
We’ve been discussing free speech and free press, lately, in the encroaching darkness of “political correction.” In Saturday’s column, I touched on the efforts made by various faculty and students at the university called La Sapienza in Rome, to prevent Pope Benedict from delivering an address at the opening of term. I said he was intending to discuss the famous trial of Galileo. I got this little nugget from mainstream media, who gathered it from the anti-papal propaganda. The pope had cancelled his appearance, to avoid a pointless confrontation with people I compared to howler monkeys (see below). But he was publishing the speech so anyone with a genuinely open mind could read it.
Imagine my surprise, when the speech came out on the Internet. It did not even mention Galileo. I’d been busily defending the pope, in advance, for something he wasn’t even going to say.
…But mea culpa. Had only I checked with the Vatican, on what the pope’s speech was going to be about, I could have avoided the trap of believing what I’d heard from those “howler monkeys.” The lesson, which I thought I’d long since learned, is never take anything at face value, no matter how many times it is repeated in the media. Link
Thanks, Carol!
In the Feb. 13 “Human Nature,” William Saletan said that research in mice indicated that the embryoblast-trophoblast distinction began at the two-cell stage. As evidence, the article linked to a 2006 paper in Science. That paper has since been retracted due to “falsified or fabricated images” by one co-author. However, according to subsequent communication with a different co-author who was not implicated in the fabrication, the essential findings “have been replicated and appear to be as reported.” The article has been rephrased to describe the “finding” as a “theory,” pending publication of the replicating study. Link
Agence France Press mistakenly declared that Shaker Heights, a relatively tony suburb of Cleveland, was being hit hard by the mortgage crisis. It had meant to refer to Mount Pleasant. After noticing its error, AFP killed and replaced the story. But if you want to see the kind of reaction generated by the original piece, have a look at the comments here. The AFP advisory:
WASHINGTON (AFP) – On January 27, AFP ran a five-part series on the impact of the US mortgage crisis on the city of Cleveland, including a description of one of the most devastated areas, the southeastern neighborhood of Mount Pleasant. Unfortunately the area was mis-identified as Shaker Heights, a prosperous suburb of Cleveland.
Once the error was discovered, the story was immediately killed on all AFP wires and a new dispatch filed with the correct name of Mount Pleasant. AFP regrets the error and the distress that it has caused to the officials and people of Shaker Heights. Information about Shaker Heights can be found at www.shakeronline.com. Link
Thanks, Brian and Dianne!
From the AP:
Arkansas star Darren McFadden said Saturday he fully expects to play in the Cotton Bowl after a television report raised questions about his eligibility. Arkansas television station KARK has since backed off the report, apologizing to McFadden and his family.
“It’s something that’s uncalled for — people not getting their facts straight,” said McFadden, the Heisman Trophy runner-up. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
On Thursday, McFadden and agent Mike Conley were linked by KARK to the purchase of a Cadillac Escalade. After strong denials by Conley and McFadden’s parents, the station said Friday its report was flawed.
“We want to publicly apologize to Mr. Conley for any distress he has experienced,” said a posting on the station’s Web site. “And we also want to apologize to Darren McFadden and his family for reporting details of this story that were not accurate.”
The 25th-ranked Razorbacks play No. 7 Missouri in the Cotton Bowl on Tuesday.
After the initial report, the University of Arkansas said it was reviewing the matter. The school released a statement Saturday that stopped short of declaring the issue dead…Link
MSNBC.com, which carried the initial KARK report, published this correction:
In a Dec. 28 story, TV station KARK-TV in Little Rock, Ark., incorrectly reported that agent Mike Conley bought a car in the presence of Arkansas running back Darren McFadden and let McFadden drive that car. The TV station retracted the report.
From Roy Greenaslade of the Guardian:
Last Tuesday I carried a report headlined 11 relatives of Iraqi journalist killed. It now transpires that the story, widely carried in the United States, was false. Dhia al-Kawaz, editor of the Jordan-based Asawat al-Iraq news agency, has since admitted that his claim that gunmen had killed 11 of his family members in Baghdad was untrue. In fact, only his brother-in-law was killed in a single incident. His family say he lied in order to get his family refugee status in Jordan.
More here.
From Slapshot, the New York Times’ new hockey blog (post):
The Toronto radio reporter who caused a stir by claiming that Rangers forward Sean Avery had made derogatory comments about Maple Leafs forward Jason Blake’s recent cancer diagnosis before a game last month, retracted his report in a broadcast Monday.
Howard Berger, a reporter for FAN 590, read an apology on the air.
“It was my intention only to report accurately on what transpired during the pregame warmup,” Berger said. “Based on Mr. Avery’s clear statement that he made no such remarks, my information and therefore my reporting does not appear to have been accurate. I truly regret reporting that Mr. Avery made any such comments. I apologize to Mr. Avery for having done so. And I hereby retract my comments about what transpired during the pregame warmup on Nov. 10, 2007.”
Avery, who denied saying anything about Blake’s cancer, has initiated a libel suit against both the radio station and The Toronto Star.
The related Toronto Star correction is here.
After four-and-a-half months of re-reporting, long bouts of silence, and tangling with the US Army and various publications and bloggers, The New Republic today published a lengthy article by editor Franklin Foer that attempts to offer the magazine’s final word on the veracity of columns written by Scott Thomas Beauchamp, its Baghdad Diarist.
We’ll skip to the punchline, which is contained at the very end of a very long article:
In retrospect, we never should have put Beauchamp in this situation. He was a young soldier in a war zone, an untried writer without journalistic training. We published his accounts of sensitive events while granting him the shield of anonymity–which, in the wrong hands, can become license to exaggerate, if not fabricate.
When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.
We’ve read many retractions and editor’s notes over the last few years, and this is among the longest and most detailed. On its face, that’s a plus. Serious incidents are too often explained away with just a few sentences, and many details are left out. TNR has offered up a retelling of how concerns were raised about Beauchamp’s writing, and how the magazine responded to those concerns. But that doesn’t make it a completely satisfying account and explanation.
It takes Foer several thousand words to arrive at the above paragraphs; he’s buried the lede.
The lede also itself lacks a suitably blunt admission of retraction, an expression of regret, and an explanation of how the magazine will alter its policies and procedures to prevent this from happening again. Also, nowhere in the lengthy piece does Foer apologize to readers; in fact, he makes a point of opening with what seems like a dig at the Weekly Standard reporter who first raised concerns: “I didn’t know him or his byline.”
Foer takes other media to task for jumping to conclusions and explains how the military made it difficult for TNR to complete its re-reporting. Okay, interesting background. The outside pressures certainly made it difficult, but they’re not the focus at this point. The articles have been retracted — that’s the bottom line. TNR has to take its lumps and not appear as if it’s trying to spread blame.
As Maggie Shnayerson of Gawker noted earlier today:
Foer ought to have taken a page from the Chuck Lane School of Apologia. In 1998, when addressing TNR readers in the wake of the Stephen Glass scandal, the magazine’s 500-word piece concluded simply: “We offer no excuses for any of this. Only our deepest apologies to all concerned.”
Foer’s piece isn’t exactly a glossing over of the issue, but it hits several wrong notes and almost feels as if the final truth of retraction has been buried underneath an avalanche of expository writing. A simple, frank admission and expression of regret at the top of the piece would have made the important facts clear. Then the interesting background would be just that: background
