The Huffington Post has all but retracted the story on Big Macs and wages that I criticized here (as did Tom Maguire, who deserves credit for getting there first). It has pointed out the errors, where they came from, and how they were made. It’s admirably done what you’re supposed to do when you mess up.
That’s far more than you would ever get from, say, the serially wrong Matt Drudge.
But since the wrong information went big on the Internet after the original HuffPost piece, we thought it would be interesting to see how other outlets have handled the fixes. It’s not very encouraging.
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell ran an embarrassing segment the other day about the erroneous non-study:
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell broke down the numbers in his latest Rewrite segment, pointing to new research by Arnobio Morelix at the University of Kansas. The study, which looked at labor costs at McDonald’s, found that if you double every salary of every worker at the fast food chain, the price of a Big Mac would increase just 68 cents from $3.99 to $4.67.
MSNBC’s piece stands uncorrected.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Forbes, which was a key vector in the story’s spread, has updated its post with a note at the top that says, “Questions have been raised about the study at the center of this post, and the post has been changed accordingly.” MSN also put a big correction at the top of its story, as did David Atkins at Digby’s Hullabaloo.
ABC News had even less excuse to write about this “research” since by the time it published its story, it knew that it was some undergrad’s work. It did some actual reporting that introduces some skepticism and context, but the headline still says, “Price of Big Mac Could Rise by 68 Cents If Minimum Wage Doubles.”
Reading through the hits on this is an appalling tour of click-whoring aggregation at its worst. A site called Opposing View calls it “a new study conducted by a University of Kansas scholar” and rewrites Think Progress and the Huffington Post, burying links to the sources at the bottom. Fox News Radio ran it through the talk-radio wringer, unchecked.
The Houston Chronicle aggregated the HuffPost, didn’t namecheck HP till after the end of the post, and then aggregated the HuffPost’s retraction. The coup de grace, though, is that the Chron also reprinted an erroneous Business Insider aggregation. It’s uncorrected. Great work, Hearst! Business Insider itself put a three-paragraph correction atop its post. Henry Blodget also updated his post.
Gawker aggregated and its errors are uncorrected. Also uncorrected: The Washington Post, The Franchise Herald, KIRO radio in Seattle, Newser, The Week, The Spokane Spokesman-Review, PJ Media, Truthdig, the Albany Times-Union, LiveLeak, The Daily Meal, AMNewYork, Moyers & Company’s blog, HuffPostLive’s video, and ABC Action News in Tampa.
The Jane Dough corrected its post to call the KU researcher an undergrad, but has left all the other wrong information as is.
The New York Times puts its multiple corrections at the bottom of its erroneous post. Think Progress puts its corrections at the bottom, as well, and leaves the body of the post—errors and all—as is. A strikethrough would work best here.
We’ll induct this gem from Oklahoma City’s KFOR-TV into the Hamster Wheel Hall of Fame for this dumb aggregation, which has no correction and, egregiously, introduces its own fact error, calling the KU kid’s numbers a “study from Kansas State University.” And maybe The Examiner too. It aggregates MSN Money aggregating The Huffington Post and its post is also uncorrected.
And, of course, my favorite, the false MLive story on the “comprehensive research conducted by the University of Kansas,” hasn’t been touched.
I said yesterday that one of the first rules of Internet journalism is that false news is far more likely to go viral than factual news. Audit Boss Dean Starkman points out that’s nothing new and that Mark Twain said it best more than a century ago:
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Don't confuse aggregators like Drudge or Instapundit with writers and publishers. If one merely provides a link to a story written by someone else that turns out to be factually incorrect it is incumbent upon the author and publisher of that story to update the story with any corrections necessary as they are brought to their attention. And unlike the print or broadcast media, Internet publications can be easily updated and identified as such within the original link. Therefore aggregators can automatically provide "correction" by maintaining their link to the story. If they choose to self-publish comments, updates, and/or corrections that's their prerogative and those should be held to the same standards of accuracy. But one thing with which I will agree with you is today's journalists are much more interested in driving the conversation than they are in reporting the conversation.
#1 Posted by Ralph Gizzip, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 12:23 PM
Also uncorrected: Consumerist
http://consumerist.com/2013/07/30/how-much-would-a-big-mac-go-up-in-price-if-mcdonalds-workers-were-paid-15-per-hour/
I alerted them to the problem via e-mail shortly after Tom Maguire's post went up.
#2 Posted by Hoystory, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 12:27 PM
Actually, the quote is "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on." And it wasn't Mark Twain, though this is a common error.
#3 Posted by Rand Simberg, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 12:29 PM
" the serially wrong Matt Drudge."
How can someone who only links to other articles written at other media sites ever be accused of being "serially wrong". Unless your argument is that since all Drudge does is link to media, and the media is "serially wrong", then Drudge cant help but be wrong.
#4 Posted by John, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 12:31 PM
What this FUbar does is soften us up for the next time. With the incorrect calculation a 15% increase was being deemed tolerable for doubling wages. Given typically restaurant have labor costs of 40%, a doubling might increase the cost by 30%. Would that be OK? The pernicious suggestion is that the government should dictate to business what to pay the employees.
#5 Posted by DEEBEE, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 12:52 PM
Joe Namath: I majored in basket weaving because journalism was too easy.
#6 Posted by PTL, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 12:54 PM
The snipe at Drudge is hilarious, both for the imbecilic assumption that Drudge writes stories at all, but even more for the way it's supposed to remove the stink from PuffHo. You do know you're a joke, right?
#7 Posted by mark, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 12:55 PM
So, Mr. Chittum, are you going to correct your statement about Matt Drudge?
#8 Posted by jlh, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 01:11 PM
Even the Huffpo correction infers all kinds of stupidity. I love the part about how it would increase job longevity. Well, yeah, I guess maybe it would if McDs changed its entire model, stopped hiring high schoolers and seniors looking for supplements or beginning experience and concentrated on hiring career minded fast food servers. That would start an entirely new trade school business as well, where workers could learn the pictograph register. Idiots.
#9 Posted by Tuerqas, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 01:14 PM
Bias drives error
Error drives mistrust
Mistrust drives readership decline
Readership decline drives ad revenue down
Ad revenue drives layoffs.
And every time another shocked reporter packs his shopworn narrative in a cardboard box and is escorted out by security to hit the bricks, an angel gets his wings!
#10 Posted by Kevin R.C. O'Brien, CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 03:20 PM
That’s far more than you would ever get from, say, the serially wrong CJR Audit.
There. Fixed.
#11 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Fri 2 Aug 2013 at 08:09 PM