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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (77825)	10/15/2004 2:15:43 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793840

An Illustration of the Importance of Putting Major Corrections on the Front Page Liberal Media Blog During my vacation, the L.A. Times made a mistake in its coverage of the Swift Boat Vets' criticism of John Kerry. Now that is certainly nothing new -- but I think that the nature of the mistake, and the way it came about, illustrate three theories that I have been advancing on these pages for as long as I can remember: Almost nobody reads the correction sections of even the major newspapers; Therefore, newspapers should give more prominent placement to corrections of important errors on the significant issues of the day; and Newspapers should assign someone with editorial responsibility to read blogs on a regular basis. Here's what happened: The Times's error was made in this story, which stated: [T]he Swift boat group has launched a new cycle of campaign ads claiming that Kerry "betrayed his fellow veterans" by meeting with "enemy" Vietnamese negotiators in Paris during the Vietnam War. . . . . During his 1971 speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry talked about private meetings he had attended the previous May in Paris with representatives from the U.S.-backed South and communist North Vietnamese governments. In other words, the story says, the Swift Boat Vets said that Kerry met with the "enemy" (note the sneer quotes), but in fact he met with both sides. Except that, as PoliPundit noted, he didn't. He met with the enemy, and the enemy only. Let's roll the tape of Kerry's own description of his meetings in Paris: I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government. As Polipundit noted, this translates as: "I met with the communists and the Viet Cong" -- groups collectively known as the enemy (with no sneer quotes necessary, L.A. Times). A Beldar reader (and no doubt some others) wrote the Times, and a correction was issued in fairly short order. The correction did not mention the Swift Boat Vets or say that their claim was correct, and it appeared (as is the Times's and most newspapers' common practice) in a small box on Page A2. So why do I say that this mistake illustrates my theories above? Well, recall the context. As Beldar reminds us, the New York Times made the exact same mistake last month, three times in a row. Beldar (and no doubt some others) wrote the Times, and a correction was issued in fairly short order. The correction did not mention the Swift Boat Vets or say that their claim was correct, and it appeared (as is the Times's and most newspapers' common practice) in a small box on Page A2. (Sound familiar?) And then, the L.A. Times made the exact same mistake, and corrected it the same way. I believe that the L.A. Times reporters ultimately got their incorrect facts about Kerry's meetings from the New York Times. They may have obtained the incorrect information directly, from one or more of the New York Times articles, or it may have been indirect -- possibly from some secondary news source that relied upon the New York Times stories as a primary source. But my guess is that the New York Times was the ultimate source for the incorrect information printed in the Los Angeles Times. Where else would it have come from? I haven't seen that particular error made anywhere else. It has to have been the New York Times. Here's the thing: the New York Times error was corrected on September 29. The L.A. Times story did not appear until October 5. But the L.A. Times reporters didn't know about the correction. Why do you suppose that is? I'll tell you why -- and here's where my theories come into play. It's because almost nobody reads the corrections sections of even the major newspapers. The fact that the L.A. Times reporters simply missed the New York Times's corrections illustrates this point better than anything I could say. They probably would have seen those corrections if they had been printed on the front page. Or if they (or their editors) had been reading blogs. But instead, they printed the erroneous information, and then their paper corrected it in yet another correction that nobody will read. I say: stop the madness. Leave the corrections of the spelling of an athlete's name on Page A2. But when you screw up a major item in a significant news story, put it on Page One, guys, where people will actually look at it. The public will be better informed, and you might even save your colleagues at other newspapers some embarrassment. thatliberalmedia.com