Comments on: Fact checking

By: Herschel

Herschel — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:37:51 +0000

The New Republic wanted to believe this crap and that’s why they published it without confirmation.
The same thing happened to a breathless Rather and his CBS expose’ of President Bush’s National Guard service.
The media has two standards, one for reinforcement of their own personal ideology, and another, when it is contrary to their opinion.
No wonder they are losing readership.

By: David Charlap

David Charlap — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:17:58 +0000

I’m not surprised. Jayson Blair demonstrated to the world that even the New York Times has no problem running complete works of fiction, as long as the fiction is politically correct. The Times only got upset when the rest of the world found out, and their response was simply to fire the person in the spotlight and do nothing to change their editorial policies.

Given the number of outright lies from AP you’re always pointing out, this should really come as no surprise. You don’t think their incompetence only applies to articles about Israel, do you?

By: Meryl Yourish

Meryl Yourish — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:03:07 +0000

I completely forgot about monkeyfishing. Yeah, you have to be seven kinds of stupid to not fact-check something like that.

I’m sorry, but I have been caught out exactly once in six years of blogging, by the “naked paintball” article. And that’s because my bullshit detector was overwhelmed by my feminist outrage.

Having worked in the publishing industry for many years before becoming a blogger, I know how easy it is to hire and keep a decent fact-checker. Slate and TNR should be ashamed of not having the pride in their own work to make sure their facts are correct.

By: soccer dad

soccer dad — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:56:29 +0000

That's how you get "monkey fishing."

By: Russ

Russ — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:38:56 +0000

You’ve got a bad link, Meryl, for your “Ace points to a conversation” reference.

By: Jim Addison

Jim Addison — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:13:25 +0000

It’s not so much that they failed to fact-check (although that in itself is a shocking omission from the mag “victimized” by Stephen Glass and Evie Fairbanks’ fabrications). The final straw is that they CLAIMED to have fact-checked the articles when questions arose, and had not.

How stupid do you have to be not to realize the gig is up?

By: Ryan Frank

Ryan Frank — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 05:22:34 +0000

Hey, the story ’smelled good’ (actually quote from TNR) so it must be true! Its the new ‘fake but accurate’.

The Weekly Standard is claiming that Beauchamp has recanted during the first day of the military investigation. If true, this means that TNR was still claiming they had confirmation of the stories while Beauchamp himself was denying them.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/08/beauchamp_recants.asp