To my knowledge, the Times hasn’t made an announcement about the results of its plan to reexamine its verification procedures, so we’ll have to wait and see what solutions, if any, the paper can come up with. It’s admittedly a unique challenge to read, fact check, edit, and verify the authorship of such a large number of letters.
One useful strategy, since so many letters now come via e-mail, would be to create an online form for letter writers similar to the Chicago Tribune’s error report form. This form would require people to fill out information such as their name, home/work and email address, home or office phone number. It would cut down on the number of people who send in letters and offer nothing more than a singlefella96@yahoo.com e-mail address.
The form would speed up the process of gathering identifying information, and enable an editor to quickly check if the phone number matches the address or affiliation given. Of course, one of the best ways to verify authorship is decidedly old school: pick up the phone and call them.
Apart from that, any letter that accuses someone of “brandishing dildoes and ‘doobies’ or marijuana joints” requires a genuine fact check, however painful it may be.
Correction of the Week
“Due to space restrictions, the word “vegetarian” was omitted from the description of Rabbi Arie Chark’s favourite Chinese restaurant (”It’s a tough time to be Jewish,” Jan. 2). Rabbi Chark would like to assure readers that he does, in fact, keep kosher.” – Winnipeg Sun
“A STORY in The Advertiser yesterday stated that 9030 interstate visitors spent a night holidaying in SA in 2007, with that figure forecast to drop to 8699 this year.
The correct figures were 9,030,000 total visitor nights spent in SA in 2007, to drop to 8,699,000 during 2009.” – The Advertiser (Australia)
Parting Shot
“The article “Unified standard seen linking mobile world” published yesterday incorrectly stated that telecommunications executive Craig Ehrlich is married to Christine Loh Kung-wai. Statements attributed to Mr Ehrlich that he used the term “wife” to describe his relationship with Ms Loh were in fact not what he said. We apologise for any embarrassment this has caused.” – South China Morning Post
- 1
- 2
A former journalist and friend of mine just joined a highly respected PR firm where one of his jobs was to write letters to the editors for their clients that were CEOs and such. They would read them and sign off.
That's one thing. But then he was told to write more folksy letters, dozens of them, that were then given to employees to sign and submit to the papers in hopes of swaying public opinion. I imagine an employee doesn't really have much of a choice. Nearly all his letters were published.
And after reading about the fake letter writers for John McCain, I don't know how you can trust any letters to the editor. I don't know how the verification process can weed out ghost-written letters that are little more than propaganda or paid advertising.
Posted by Eddie on Fri 9 Jan 2009 at 07:27 PM