Regret the Error

Fresno Bee hoaxed by fish tale

Romenesko spotted a story in the Fresno Bee wherein the paper had to admit it was taken in by a tale of a "fat, blind goldfish rescued off a lawn and reunited with his owner." The original story is here. From the report about the hoax:

       Did you hear the one about the fat, blind goldfish rescued off a lawn and reunited with his owner?
Turns out it was more than just a fish story. It was a hoax.
Wednesday -- when The Bee published an article about Charley the goldfish's reunion with his owner -- some readers called to blow holes in the story.
Charley is real. So are Lori Igasan and Bernadette Planting, the two women featured in the article. But they're not strangers to each other, as they told reporter Will Albritton, and good old Charley never was lost or discovered on Igasan's lawn.
"Journalists are trained to be skeptical, but at some point we have to take people at their word," said Betsy Lumbye, executive editor and senior vice president of The Bee. "We're disappointed that these ladies weren't honest, and disappointed that we didn't catch the hoax."
Both women said they meant no harm with their yarn, which started with a classified ad in The Bee and achieved minor notoriety on "Late Show with David Letterman."
To Igasan and Planting, friends for several years, it was simply a joke.
"It was not our intention to hurt anybody," said Igasan, who launched the hoax with an ad that read: "Found: Large, obese goldfish. Approx 11yrs old, blind as a bat."
...

Retraction

The "What's Going on in Transport" article published April 23, 2007, has been retracted from min's b2b and MINONLINE.COM due to unsubstantiated reporting concerning Commonwealth Business Media. The article contained unwarranted accusations against CBM. min's b2b editorial policy is to never publish unsubstantiated rumors and it sincerely regrets this error. Link (sub req'd)

The Morien Jones apologies, cont. again

The apologies keep rolling in for Morien Jones. This story goes back to last summer. Some newspapers continue to get the story wrong, while others are just getting around to correcting their reports from last year. Below are the latest installments. Read the previous ones by starting here.

FURTHER to our article on May 26 2006 about Lynett Burgess’s acquittal for indecent exposure, we have been asked to make clear her neighbour Morien Jones did not film Ms Burgess in her garden.
The video shown in court was shot by Mr Jones’s builder as she walked naked in front of Mr Jones’s house.
We apologise to Mr Jones for any embarrassment caused. Link

On May 25 2006 we reported that Lynett Burgess has been cleared of indecent exposure for sunbathing nude in her garden. We stated that her neighbour, Mr Jones, had taken a video of her in her garden which was given to the police. We have been asked to make clear that Mr Jones's builder in fact took the pictures when Ms Burgess was on Mr Jones's drive.

In an article published on 18th April ('Naked' nurse's living hell) we incorrectly reported that a builder had filmed Lyneth Burgess sunbathing naked in her own garden and that her neighbours, Morien and Nia Jones, reported her to police for this. 

In fact the builder's film, taken on police advice, showed Ms Burgess walking naked on the driveway at the front of the Jones' property, not on her own property. 

We apologise for any misleading impression given of Mr Jones and his family.

Our agency-based report on the unsuccessful prosecution of Lynette Burgess for indecent exposure (25 May) suggested that she had been filmed sunbathing naked in her garden by a neighbour, Morien Jones. In fact the film, taken on police advice by Mr Jones's builder in the context of possible court proceedings, showed Ms Burgess walking naked on the driveway at the front of Mr Jones's property.
We apologise to Mr Jones for any embarrassment caused by the misunderstanding. Link

Plagiarism at the Daily Pennsylvanian

IvyGate has the details on an incident of plagiarism at the Daily Pennsylvanian, a student newspaper. It also previously reported on an incident at the Yale Daily News. From IvyGate:

The DP fired columnist Jamie France '10 this weekend after her column on caffeine Friday bore uncanny similarities to a Yahoo! Food piece from March. The former ticks off facts on Diet Coke, Water Joe, Red Bull, Tab Energy, Enviga, Rocket Chocolates, Starbucks and Spike Shooter; the latter ticks off facts on Diet Coke, Water Joe, Red Bull, Tab Energy, Enviga, Rocket Chocolates, Starbucks and Spike Shooter. Five health benefits are duplicated, too. And all those things are given in the exact same order, the odds of which occurring naturally are one in (math nerds, speak up) 6,227,020,800.
...less than 24 hours later, France was canned. "While we still believe that she did complete other research to get her information, the similarities in writing style and structure are too noticeable to ignore," Tillman emailed us. "The DP does not tolerate plagiarism in any form, and we're currently discussing implementing more in-depth workshops on these issues for staff in the future."

Yet another (late) El Guerbouzi apology

ON February 4 as part of the article "Give Us Heist Suspect You Get Bomb Plotter", we claimed that Mohamed Karbouzi (a variation of the English spelling of Mohammed El Guerbouzi) was the alleged ringleader of the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings and was wanted for questioning by Spanish police in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombing.
Mohammed El Guerbouzi is a devout Muslim and family man who lives peacefully in London and has never been involved with or supported any terrorist act. We unreservedly apologise to him and his family for the distress and embarrassment caused.

This is the latest is a series of apologies to this man. We saw the first ones in June of last year.

Unsafe reporting

AN article on page 15 of The Daily Telegraph on February 15 reported about the Senates Estimates Committee hearings into HMAS Westralia.
The article incorrectly stated that Baileys had withdrawn safety allegations before being awarded several defence contracts.
The Daily Telegraph accepts that Baileys has never withdrawn its safety concerns and regrets any embarrassment to Baileys from any inference that Baileys was awarded contracts in return for the withdrawal of safety allegations.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist wrongly identified shooter as Chinese man

James Fallows has tracked (here and here) the tale of how Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed initially and incorrectly identified the shooter in the Virginia Tech tragedy as a Chinese man. In a story from April 16, which has since been removed, Sneed led with:

Authorities were investigating whether the gunman who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history was a Chinese man who arrived in the United States last year on a student visa.
The 24-year-old man arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on Aug. 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai, the source said. Investigators have not linked him to any terrorist groups, the source said.
Police believe three bomb threats on the campus last week may have been attempts by the man to test the campus’ security response, the source said.

Fallows shows the story was then updated to read:

The initial investigation had led law enforcement authorities to a preliminary suspect who was a Chinese national, accompanied by details and a description. The man was placed on the suspect list before fingerprints could be verified. The list in turn was distributed to law enforcement officials via a national network in place to check on possible terrorism in the United States.

By then the story had already been picked up by other outlets and, according Fallows, caused "alarm in the world’s most populous nation." No correction as of yet.

NY Sun names fired CBS producer; why naming her is important

After many blogs (Gawker, TV Newser etc.) put out calls for the name of the CBS producer fired this week for plagiarism, David Blum has named her in a story in today's New York Sun. "In an era when plagiarists get dismissed and outed weekly by their employers at news organizations around the country, the decision by CBS News not to disclose the producer's name — and to call an act of flagrant plagiarism an 'omission' — seems curious at best," he writes, correctly. Our background and concerns are here. Then he reveals the name:

...her name is Melissa McNamara, a cbsnews.com Web producer (and herself a blogger for cbsnews.com) who joined the network in October 2005 after working as a news assistant in the Washington bureau of the New York Times and as a researcher at CNN.

Some may wonder why fellow journalists think it's important to name the person. There are three reasons:

1. It's the industry standard. Have a look through our annual plagiarism round-ups on the right hand column of this website. The person is named the vast majority of the time. Even student newspapers do it. Criticism inevitably follows when plagiarists aren't named.
2. It's a necessary act of disclosure. Because, for example, the press would seek to name a congressional staffer who commits a serious ethical lapse, we have to meet the same standard. We disclosure disclose the wrongdoing of people on a daily basis and hold them up to public scrutiny and scorn. Some of these people are public figures; some are not. When a journalism institution suffers an ethical or professional lapse of this nature, we must disclose the details. When we don't, we perpetrate a double standard.
3. It provides accountability for the plagiarist. By not naming the offender, CBS was creating the possibility for this person to apply for new jobs without having to disclose this incident. We're not saying she should be banned from journalism for life; but she shouldn't be able to gloss over an incident of plagiarism or ignore it completely. Her name needs to be public in order to ensure other journalism organizations are aware of whom they're dealing with. Again, we want to emphasize we're not suggesting she should never work in the biz again; that depends on how she handles this incident and works to ensure it never happens again. But potential employers have a need and right to know this about her.

Unfortunately, CBS hit several wrong notes with its handling of this incident. It was not forthcoming and clear in its presentation of the plagiarism; it refused to provide essential details to Public Eye, an internal site explicitly created  to "bring transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News"; and it refused to name the offender. At this point, we hope this episode becomes a learning experience and impetus for change at CBS. And that appears to be the case, at least according to a New York Times article from today:

CBS News said yesterday it planned to install a new level of editorial oversight to its Web site since  revelations that the CBS anchor Katie Couric read a plagiarized commentary on the site last week.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't offer any further details. It does say that "...CBS said yesterday it was investigating to see if the producer...had written any previous commentaries for Ms. Couric that had been plagiarized." This is an important, necessary step.  Let's hope CBS delivers a full report on its findings and reveals the new level of oversight.

These hot cross buns need correction

The Guardian's Roy Greenslade provides a case study for why the press should take special care to correct online material. He recounts the tale of a totally false story published by the Sunday Telegraph in 2003 given new life thanks to the lack of an effective online corrections policy. He writes (with all the relevant links):

...the Sunday Telegraph published an utterly false tale claiming that several councils "across Britain" had ordered schools to stop serving  to hot cross buns at Easter so as not to offend children of non-Christian faiths. In fact, no local authority had done anything of the sort, as I reported at the time. Most had never served hot cross buns in the first place. It was a figment of the reporters' imaginations and the Sunday Telegraph eventually carried an apology. But this was never appended to its website story, and the result has led to the story being recycled some four years later.

Last week the east London borough of Tower Hamlets - one of the original councils named by the Telegraph - found it necessary to deny that same bun-banning story all over again. It issued a statement to the East London Advertiser "rubbishing" renewed claims that had appeared in a Caribbean online newspaper Cayman Net News dated March 24, 2007. That article, referring to a "blanket bun ban" and to "English bun persecution", is based entirely on the false Sunday Telegraph report.

So the failure of the Sunday Telegraph to put a note on its website archive - as it promised at the time to do - has led to the pernicious lie being resurrected. Isn't it about time that it sorted this out? Or will Tower Hamlets, and five other councils, be called on to deny these claims every Easter for the rest of the century?

CBS News fires producer for plagiarism

A producer at CBS News has been fired after plagiarizing from the Wall Street Journal for a video essay on "Couric & Co.," the Katie Couric/group blog on the CBS News website. AP reports  the essay was removed and an editor's note has been placed on the site. We searched the blog in question -- and the entire site -- and weren't initially able to locate it, which was frustrating. Then we found it and a bit of explanation via the CBS Public Eye blog:

Correction: The April 4 Notebook was based on a "Moving On" column by Jeffrey Zaslow that ran in The Wall Street Journal on March 15 with the headline, "Of the Places You'll Go, Is the Library Still One of Them?" Much of the material in the Notebook came from Mr. Zaslow, and we should have acknowledged that at the top of our piece. We offer our sincere apologies for the omission.

There are obvious problems with this. First, it's labeled as an editor's note at the top of the post and then noted as a correction in the body. These are very different things. Which is it? Also, if this was a firing offense, the editor's note/correction should explain the disciplinary action taken. This is a case of plagiarism, not omission. That's why the producer was fired. CBS should speak in plain terms and offer more explanation.
Finally, the editor's note was put online on April 9, yet the editor's note/correction is dated April 4. This is likely to replace the offending post, which appeared on the 4th. But back-dating the post means it wasn't on the front page of the blog on the day it appeared. The result is that visitors who saw the original essay are less likely to come upon this important information.

It's good to see the Public Eye blog make note of this incident. But it appears that CBS execs aren't willing to offer any further explanation. "Mike Sims, director of News and Operations for CBSNews.com, declined to comment about the specifics of the matter," wrote Public Eye editor Brian Montopoli. He then quotes Sims saying, "The Editor's Note speaks for itself." Yet Sims was happy to offer comment for a different Public Eye post the day before. This (lack of) exchange seems contrary to the stated purpose of Public Eye:

Public Eye’s fundamental mission is to bring transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News — transparency that is unprecedented for broadcast and online journalism.

CBS News execs should be required to offer an explanation to Public Eye. Strangely, the AP story gets quotes and details not offered to Public Eye. This undercuts the importance and efficacy of Public Eye, which should be of concern to CBS.

Let's hope this incident will inspire CBS to create an online corrections page and policy. We asked Public Eye a little over a year ago about the lack of one and were told by a CBS online exec -- the same Mike Sims -- that it was being considered and they were "trying to find the best way" to create one. We suggest taking a look at what ESPN did to create a cross-platform corrections policy and online page.
From AP: 

A CBS News producer was fired and the network apologized after a Katie Couric video essay on libraries was found to be plagiarized from The Wall Street Journal... 
An editor for The Wall Street Journal called CBS News to point out the similarities of the April 4 notebook item to Zaslow’s article, headlined “Of the Places You’ll Go, Is the Library Still One of Them?” The pieces talk about how libraries are seen differently by children from their parents.
“We were horrified,” CBS News spokeswoman Sandra Genelius said. “It was almost verbatim.”
CBS would not identify the producer fired for the transgression.