'Clarification' Means It Wasn't Our Fault

Our old friend Ann Scott Tyson had the misfortune of misreporting that 12 miners had survived that terrible mine disaster in Sago, but let's not go crazy and describe the fix as a correction. It's a clarification, as shown by the current note appended to the original story, at left. The update blames parties other than multilayered fact-checking professional journalists.

This is a very sad day and I don't want to convey an inappropriate tone. But entirely separate from this disaster and its mishandling by mainstream media, we have the amusing spectable of a newspaper painfully reluctant to concede it's responsible for screwing up. Yes, this is the very same paper that, like its colleagues, repeatedly criticizes President Bush for never admitting mistakes.

And I see the Post finally--and, as I'd expected, secretly--got around to correcting its hilarious copy-editor's note that had been unintentionaly included on a clarification to a Petula Dvorak story published Sept. 23 that falsely described one Patrice Cuddy as a "novice protestor." As I noted on Oct. 9, the correction, which doesn't even fully record Cuddy's history as an activist, read as follows:

"A Sept. 23 Metro article about people coming to Washington for the Sept. 24 demonstration against the war in Iraq described ^ (don't want to say "incorrectly" in this case) Patrice Cuddy, 56, of Olathe, Kan., as a novice protester. Cuddy had participated in three other large rallies against the war, two in Washington and one in New York."

Bold added. I've blogged about that from time to time, and as recently as Dec. 19 it was still there. Now it's gone. Without a word to anyone, and by the way Washington Post, I see you crawl my site, so you're welcome!

Comments

[Page]

It is also interesting to note that yesterday's Washington Post editorial erroneously claimed that MSHA no longer published its accident reports. The error is inexplicable. MSHA fatal accident reports are availabe in pdf format on msha's public website - www.msha.gov - a website that the paper's writers and editors had undoubtably visited on many ocassions over the previous two days.

[Michael]

Well, of course you can blame something other than the multi-layered fact-checking professionals of the ink-stained wretch union.

"News of the miners' miraculous survival had come right at deadline for East Coast newspapers."

Fact checking is nice, but deadlines are deadlines. (Seriously, though, in that snippet which you have a screencapture of our journaless doesn't use any self-defense equivocation like "according to mine officials" or "sources say". It was just out there as a fact, like, the sun rose this morning and I don't need anyone to source that one for me. It does seem...reckless.)

[Christopher Fotos]

Exactly, Mike.