Regret the Error
-
December 2, 2011 01:13 PM
The Truth about Public Untruths
Are journalists and others equipped to beat back the lies?
What’s to be done with lying liars and the lies they tell journalists and the public?
This is a topic of serious discussion in journalism circles, perhaps now more than ever. I say that with the knowledge that two years ago I wrote a column that declared, “We are in the midst of a blossoming of new forms of fact...
Continue reading -
November 21, 2011 11:10 AM
Know Your Journalists
New transparency website compiles personal data on reporters
In 2006 Adrian Holovaty, then a programmer and journalist of some reputation, wrote a blog post entitled, “A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change.” In the five years since he published it, Holovaty went on to win a Knight News Challenge grant, launch EveryBlock, sell it to MSNBC.com, and become one of the leading programmer/journalists working today. As the...
Continue reading -
November 11, 2011 01:49 PM
Some Thoughts on the Romenesko Affair
Examining the critical consensus
I have no other option than to start this column about Jim Romenesko with a litany of disclosures. Deep breath, here we go:
Romenesko has linked to my blog, Regret the Error, many times since it launched in 2004. My guess is he’s probably linked to me three to five times a year, maybe a bit more. (I’ve always tried...
Continue reading -
November 4, 2011 12:18 PM
Misinformation Propagation
Scientists work to combat false memes
Growing up in Rome, Filippo Menczer used to watch the local con artists offer gullible tourists a chance to buy the Coliseum. The scam worked often enough that it spread and other people began doing it, until a combination of police action and human intelligence defeated it. (Well, at least no one tried to sell me the Coliseum when I...
Continue reading -
October 20, 2011 02:14 PM
The Story of the Gaddafi Story
How news of the Libyan leader's demise spread on Twitter
Earlier this morning news began to spread that something major was happening in Libya. At first it seemed that a convoy, likely belonging to those loyal to former leader Moammar Gaddfi, was under attack in/near Sirte. This was where his loyalists were holed up. Was Gaddafi there too? No one knew. But soon reports emerged that he may have been...
Continue reading -
October 6, 2011 01:46 PM
Journos Call For More Transparency at NYT Op-Ed Page
Toward a higher standard of disclosure
Just a bit after 11 a.m. this morning, New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane received an e-mail from the Checks and Balances Project, a nonprofit government and industry watchdog group.
Attached to the message was a letter signed by fifty journalists and journalism educators calling on Brisbane to push the Times to meet a new standard of disclosure...
Continue reading -
September 30, 2011 12:35 PM
Unknown Quantities
How social network verification can show us what we don’t know
We don’t know.
Those are three difficult words for a journalist to say. For many, it's an admission of failure. We don’t know is a barrier to publication, dissemination. It means more work needs to be done, or that it’s time to stop and move on.
Seen another way, though, We don’t know is a starting point. You dig...
Continue reading -
September 16, 2011 12:23 PM
Eight Simple Rules for Doing Accurate Journalism
Some new, some old, some wonderfully clichéd
It’s a cliché to say clichés exist for a reason. As journalists, we’re supposed to avoid them like the, um, plague. But it’s useful to have a catchy phrase that can stick in someone’s mind, particularly if you’re trying to spread knowledge or change behaviour.
This week I began cataloguing some of my own sayings about accuracy — you can...
Continue reading -
September 9, 2011 01:19 PM
Calling Out a Source that Lied
The Memphis Commercial Appeal holds Schnucks accountable
As far as official denials go, it was clear and emphatic.
Lori Willis, communications director of the Schnucks grocery chain, issued this response after a reporter with the Memphis Commercial Appeal recently asked if the rumors were true that her company was selling its local stores to Kroger.
Typically, we would not comment on rumor and speculation, but I will...
Continue reading -
September 2, 2011 12:59 PM
Errors in Anytown, U.S.A.
Academic brings an anonymous newsroom's corrections practices to light
Last spring, Kirstie Hettinga spent several months working two days a week as an unpaid intern at what she will only describe as “a small, regional newspaper in the Northeastern United States.” Yes, like many interns, she’s a student, but this was an unpaid internship of a different order.
Hettinga is a Ph.D candidate at Penn State, and a visiting...
Continue reading -
August 19, 2011 12:00 PM
A Victim’s Tale
What it's like to be on the receiving end of a press error
Last week was a terrible one for Jon Harris, a librarian at the North Canton Public Library in Ohio. On Thursday he was smoking a cigarette on his front porch when a man walked up, pulled a gun, and demanded Harris hand over his money and laptop.
On Saturday he and his girlfriend arrived home to find all of the...
Continue reading -
August 12, 2011 12:39 PM
Schmidle in Secret
New Yorker keeps mum on fact-checking process for bin Laden piece
Amid the discussion and debate about the sourcing and accuracy of Nicholas Schmidle’s lengthy retelling of the Bin Laden raid in The New Yorker, we’ve failed to hear from one important group of people. They have the detailed information about the sourcing of the article, and spoke to Schmidle’s sources to confirm the details long before it was published.
I’m...
Continue reading -
July 29, 2011 11:35 AM
From Breaking News to Baseless Speculation
Why journalists jumped to conclusions about the Norway attacks
Why do journalists and news organizations exhibit such a lack of restraint when it comes to breaking news like last week’s events in Norway?
This is the question I’ve most frequently been asked in the week since the bloody attacks.
Many news organizations leapt to the conclusion that the bombing and shootings were the work of a jihadist terrorist...
Continue reading -
July 22, 2011 01:30 PM
What The Guardian Can Learn from Watergate Coverage
On the importance of making the “right” mistakes
Up until The New York Times Magazine published a lengthy piece last September that broke new ground in the News Corp. phone hacking scandal, The Guardian was basically the only media outlet that had pushed the story forward. As its editor, Alan Rusbridger, described in a recent article for Newsweek, “There seemed to be some omertà principle at work that...
Continue reading
—advertisement—
Desks
The Audit Business
- The impossibility of tablet-native journalism Why Murdoch’s The Daily didn’t make it
- Anti-paywall dead-enders Why worry about evidence when you can argue against straw men?
The Observatory Science
- Dull news from Doha UN climate summit a ho-hum affair for the press
- Highway to the danger zone Following Sandy, HuffPo and NYT dig into the folly of coastal development
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- NBC News sets good example for Medicare reporting People perspective leads to clear explanation of impact of proposed changes
- In Pennsylvania, a niche site with wide reach PoliticsPA drives political conversation in Keystone State
Behind the News The Media
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Mon 11:37 AM
- Farewell to The Daily
- Must-reads of the week
- The media news cycle is bananas
- Pass the #popcorn
- Must-reads of the week
