Patterico's Pontifications

7/24/2005

Why Does It Take Several Days for the L.A. Times to Acknowledge a Clear Error in an Editorial?

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 12:40 pm



It’s been four days since an L.A. Times editorial claimed:

Roberts has long been a member of the Washington establishment, and a fixture in the Federalist Society.

It’s been three days since I wrote them to point out the error.

Yet no correction of the editorial has issued. True, two days ago the paper issued a correction regarding a similar claim in a news story. But that doesn’t count as a correction of the editorial. Part of the point of a correction is to acknowledge error. The paper has not acknowledged the error in the editorial. And no correction has issued on the editorial page, where errors in editorials run.

I heard back from the Reader’s Representative on Friday about this issue. She acknowledged that the previous correction of the news story did not function as a correction of the editorial:

Hi,

I pointed out to editorial-page editors today’s correction and their editorial saying that he was a “fixture” – I’ll let you know how they respond. Corrections on editorials and opinions have to run in that section, actually, so today’s correction wasn’t intended to apply to any other reference in the paper. [Patterico notes: I’m not sure why Ms. Gold uses the word “actually” here, as if she is informing me of something I didn’t know. I made this exact point in my note to her.]

The correction that ran didn’t go through this office – I wasn’t aware of it until I saw it already written – you might want to send a note to the reporters to ask them about the origin of this error. One wonders if it was just a series of people, journalists included, making assumptions (which is what I got from the Post story). …

Ms. Gold here makes a refreshingly frank and remarkable admission: even journalists make assumptions! It’s something that we all know, but that journalists will rarely admit. After all, they have all those fact-checkers! Every assertion is checked out by numerous editors! They have standards that bloggers don’t have!

Evidently, those standards require them to take several days to decide whether it’s an error to say that someone is a “fixture in the Federalist Society” when they’re not even a member.

By contrast, responsible bloggers publish corrections at lightning speed — as soon as they become aware of errors.

I’ll stick to blogging standards, thanks.

P.S. I’m going to take Ms. Gold up on her suggestion and send a note to the reporters who wrote the news story that made the same error, to ask them where they got their information about Roberts’s purported membership in the Federalist Society. I won’t be holding my breath waiting for a response — but if I get one, I’ll be sure to let you know . . .

3 Responses to “Why Does It Take Several Days for the L.A. Times to Acknowledge a Clear Error in an Editorial?”

  1. Have you considered that the editorial may not be wrong? It may be possible to be a “fixture” at the Federalist Society without joining. If Roberts attended meetings every week and spoke at events several times a year, that would arguably make him a “fixture” even if he didn’t have a membership card.

    Doc Rampage (47be8d)

  2. Why might it take so long? (Note that I’m not defending the slowness, but merely offering some insight into the process.) They make the error on Wednesday. I don’t know when you (or others) brought the error to their attention, but let’s say it’s Wednesday afternoon. By this time they’re on deadline for Thursday’s paper, so it’s definitely not getting in the next day. It’s an error, but not such an outrageous or egregious error that they feel they need to rush.

    Now it’s Thursday. They’ve got some time to look at it, but they’re not sure they’re wrong, they want to investigate further. There is probably some effort at CYA-ing, so someone is looking for something to cover themselves.

    Now you’re into Friday. Editorial writers/editors generally don’t work weekends, so they’re doing Saturday’s editorial pages, Sunday’s editorial section and Monday’s editorial pages all on one day. Once again, the correction they’re a little loath to make gets pushed back.

    My prediction is that you’ll finally see the correction in Tuesday’s paper.

    Once again, not apologizing, merely explaining as someone who’s seen the process firsthand.

    Hoystory (d3f447)

  3. I can clear that up. Roberts isn’t a “fixture” at the Federalist Society. (I’ve been a member and involved in leadership for nearly 20 years.)

    Ron Coleman (3c6d39)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.3722 secs.