Patterico's Pontifications

1/24/2008

23 Days of Waiting for a Correction

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 12:03 am



Today marks 23 days since the L.A. Times end-of-the-year political quiz resurrected the canard that George W. Bush “[e]rroneously said Nelson Mandela was dead.” Bush quite clearly said no such thing; he was making an analogy. I wrote about this error here, on January 1 — and wrote the Readers’ Representative about it that same day.

On January 13, I sent a follow-up note. On January 15, she replied that she was still awaiting word from the editors. That was over a week ago. Today is January 24.

There’s a reason I call it the Dinosaur Media.

8 Responses to “23 Days of Waiting for a Correction”

  1. Since they’ve hollowed out the corrections department it’s likely that they’re making progress on that $4 million newspaper shrinkage project.

    Menlo Bob (044886)

  2. Well gee it took only 5 days for the cops in VA to disclose “ANY” information about a raid that cost one of them their lives!

    Being as these are public servants, maybe they ought to be required to step up a bit sooner?

    http://www.theagitator.com/2008/01/23/update-in-chesapeake/

    “The return on the search warrant Shivers attempted to serve was filed Wednesday. According to a document filed in Chesapeake Circuit Court, two hours after the shooting, police found an undisclosed amount of marijuana, six lights, three transformers, smoking devices and a fan among other things at Frederick’s home.”

    You can almost bet if it had been a distributable amount it would have been disclosed!

    Which war on are we winning the bestus. Drugs or terror?

    TC (1cf350)

  3. One wonders if they’re cringing behind the display of incorrectability or just oblivious. Kind of amusing actually, when the MSM keeps up displays of hubris like this even as the blogs continue to expose their bias, running circles around them on a daily basis to boot.

    Hope this OK to say, but the attached thread reminded me this AM of…hmmm, how do I say this…just how absolutely great it’s been coming to this site for the last week or so and actually listening to people have real, many-sided yet civil conversations, uninterrupted, about lots of real topics. Don’t mean to be OT but anyway thanks, Patterico, for hosting it all.

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  4. = this is OK

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  5. They are hoping that by the time they get around to not correcting this blatant lie, that it will have become either – a) common knowledge, or b) swept down the memory hole. Either way, their alleged committment to accuracy is laughable. The Readers Rep seems to provide cover for the “journalists” rather than pursuing accuracy.

    JD (75f5c3)

  6. Indeed, NOYK, the prodigiously productive, doughty Patterico is doing a great service to people in search of factual, high-level discussion of issues. He’s making progress with the LA Times, having gained some corrections over the years and even forcing the dinosaur to anxiously look over its shoulder in his direction at times.

    I expect and hope that the next LAT editor will be aware of blogger ethics and introduce some of its fact-checking ethos to the staff. Zell certainly seems cyber-aware; his abolition of the Tribune Co’s absurd Internet filtering policy greatly impressed me.

    Bradley J. Fikes (1c6fc4)

  7. If there actually was a “Readers Rep” at the LAT, they would figure out a way to metaphorically (I would prefer literally) run a D-9 through the conference room at the next EdBoard meeting.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  8. You don’t understand – what is printed by the paper is true by definition. Otherwise, why would they bother printing it?

    What they print is true, and what is true is what they print. That’s how it works. The turkey was plastic.

    In case you doubt, ask yourselves how many people ever see the correction blurbs. You can’t out shout the megaphone. They will know what they are told.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)


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