Glenn Reynolds wrote:
BLOGGERS DON'T NEED EDITORS OR PUBLISHERS: Strangely, this leads Editor and Publisher to dub bloggers "self-important."I'd add "self-correcting", with the emphasis on the correcting.Self-important, self-sufficient. Whatever.
Newspapers generally print corrections for factual errors in news articles, but almost never retract errors on the editorial page. Bloggers, who are more like op-ed writers than news reporters, strive for factual accuracy. You couldn't make the same claim with a straight face about, say, the Seattle Times editorial page, for example. Or for the folks who publish Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Molly Ivins and Robert Scheer, etc., etc..
UPDATE: I respond above to an editorial writer who challenges my assertion that newspapers seldom issue corrections for factual errors on the editorial page.
UPDATE 2 I should highlight the comment posted below by Newsday's Phineas Fiske, that
"Self-correcting" seems inappropriate, since I don't see a self-correction of Glenn's assertion that editorial pages don't run corrections.Glenn Reynolds never asserted that "editorial pages don't run corrections", he merely quoted (without answering) my question: "Can you recall the last time any newspaper issued a correction for factual errors on the editorial page? I can't." An inability to remember an occurrence of a thing (with the implication that said thing is uncommon) is not the same as an assertion that said thing does not exist. Fiske's distortion is precisely the sort of bogus reporting that leads many of us to raise questions about some journalists' competence and motives. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 28, 2003 07:00 AM
Self-correcting seems superfluous with comments.
And that is a more honest approach to discussion than the way the "editors" spin, translate and filter the "Letters to the EDITOR".
THEY seem to be on a big ego trip based on their OWN SELF-IMPORTANCE.
As for Editor & Publisher, please be aware that I am just one of a growing number who are resorting to the Press and Networks as a last resort when it comes to getting the facts. And then with reservations!
I value my freedom to arrive at an independent opinion far more than being part of the herd.
Editors and publishers have lost their ability to be gatekeepers of mass opinion and they don't like that. What the internet did to music selling it is doing to opinion selling.
Today internet opinion sites and weblogs are mostly created and viewed by the most intelligent members of society. But in the years to come it will reach the more average intelligent members of society. Especially once weblogs start being produced as slick multimedia presentations. When that happens editors and publishers of "old media" will start to freak out and propose Orwellian restrictions on the internet. Of course, the restrictions will be proposed to "protect the people". Old media will claim that freedom of the press requires suppression of independent opinion. If anyone thinks this will never happen just look at the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform which essentially does exactly that. Old media editorial opinion makers have no restrictions on their opinion selling but others have draconian restrictions placed on their opinion selling.
Posted by: Reid on December 28, 2003 07:20 AMThese representations about newspapers do not fit anything I have encountered in 30 years of newspapering.
Specifically I refer to the claim that editorial pages don't correct their own errors. Belief in that requires either non-reading of newspapers or a very short memory.
Also the claim to read what is on the minds of newspaper editors comes off as more than a little puffed up. These kinds of bumper-sticker adages are, sadly, what constitutes public discussion in some of its newer venues.
Posted by: Frank Partsch on December 29, 2003 01:56 PMI've worked on four newspapers during my 15-year career in journalism. Every single one corrects errors of fact on the editorial page, usually prominently on the editorial page.
By the way, it took me about two minutes of searching on the Seattle Times Web site to find a correction to an editorial.
Can we expect a correction from you?
Posted by: Dan Radmacher on December 29, 2003 01:59 PM"Self-correcting" seems inappropriate, since I don't see a self-correction of Glenn's assertion that editorial pages don't run corrections. Mine (Newsday) certainly does. But corrections apply to facts, and Glenn sounds -- by the list of miscreants he offers -- as though he objects to a certain cast of (liberal) opinion. Editorial pages do not, to my knowledge, feel obliged apologize for their opinions.
Posted by: Phineas Fiske on December 29, 2003 02:05 PMI echo the protest against the sweeping and generally erroneous notion that editorial pages don't correct their errors. I am currently Editorial Page Editor of the Omaha World-Herald, and we meticulously correct errors of fact. I have previously been editorial page editor and assistant editorial page editor at other newspapers in Texas and North Carolina, and the same was true there.
Posted by: Charles Reinken on December 29, 2003 02:10 PMDo the esteemed commentors believe that newspapers/TV news print an appropriate number of corrections?
I know a fair number of people who have been participants in or interviewed witnesses of "newsworthy events". With the exception of one group[1], they all say that there were significant factual errors that weren't corrected and that the news folk were completely uninterested. Maybe my acquaintances are unrepresentative, but I've yet to run into anyone whose acquaintances had a different experience.
[1] The "society page" appears to be the high water mark in accuracy.
Posted by: Andy Freeman on December 31, 2003 06:53 AM