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February 14, 2005
Corrections
Patrick Frey has a good guest column in the L.A. Times on the proper way to run corrections. To sum up: make major corrections as visible as the original story. If the mistake was on the front page, then put the correction on the front page. Admitting mistakes is hard, but newspapers not giving the same amount of attention to corrections as they do to the original mistaken story has always stuck me as cowardly.
There are two things that keep hurting the MSM in cases like Dan Rather and Eason Jordan. The first is dishonesty. Saying your source for obviously fake documents is “unimpeachable” when he is a Bush hating loon who claims to have gotten the documents in a parking lot from some mystery woman is dishonest. Repeatedly saying U.S. troops targeted journalist when all you have to back it up is hearsay is not honest.
The second problem is trying to cover up these dishonest mistakes. Once caught with fake documents Rather refused to accept it and (along with many others in the MSM) insulted his critics. Once caught slandering U.S. troops Jordan claimed he never said quite that (and it seems made no effort to get the video tape released that could prove this). Jordon said his critics were misquoting him while once again many others in the MSM insulted his critics.
Posted by Pete at February 14, 2005 04:02 PM
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