Regret the Error

The media and the miners

By now it's common knowledge that a terrible, tragic mistake was made in the reporting of 13 miners trapped in a West Virginia coal mine. For a few hours the world believed that all but one of the men had made it out alive. Because of production deadlines, many papers reported this on their front page this morning, even though they already knew it wasn't true.
It appears -- and we stress appears because it will take time to sort this mess out-- that the mining company played a role in spreading the incorrect information. Yet the media also has to accept its part for spreading what appears to have been an unsubstantiated rumor, and for not performing the necessary due diligence to get the truth. In the end it seems that the families and the press believed what they wanted to believe. It's hard to imagine both readily accepting a rumor that all but one of the men had died. They would have been skeptical; they would have demanded confirmation. No one wanted that to be true. But a rumor with the almost best case scenario? That you can run with.
Hope becomes intoxicating at a time when the stakes are so high. These high stakes have now manifested themselves in the consequences of the mistake. An error that turns hope and jubilation into loss and anger is all the more powerful.
Only one man rose from the dark hole cut into the side of a mountain; his colleagues all perished. That loss is the true tragedy. Sadly, however, it has been eclipsed by the mistakes made in the reporting and publicizing of this heartbreak. This in turn compounds the grief of the families and their community.

One of the best media-focused stories written so far is by Greg Mitchell over at Editor & Publisher. His story includes an insightful time line that shows the progression of AP headlines from the first skeptical report of hope to the final, conclusive stories of error and condemnation. A current AP story offers up a bit of a time line as well:

At about 8 p.m. Tuesday, coal company officials announced that one miner's body had been found near the area where the explosion occurred. However, there was hope for the remaining 12 miners because their track-mounted car was found undamaged deeper in the mine.
Then, a seeming miracle: Shortly before midnight, word rushed up the hollow that 12 miners had been found alive.
Family and friends clapped in the early morning chill as a single ambulance drove away, presumably with one of the miners safely in the back.

Mitchell does his own reconstruction:

An Associated Press dispatch first carried the news at 11:59 pm: "Twelve miners caught in an explosion in a coal mine were found alive Tuesday night, more than 41 hours after the blast, family members said. Bells at a church where relatives had been gathering rang out as family members ran out screaming in jubilation." But many newspapers, and all of cable TV news, reported the rescue as fact, not merely based on family claims.

Apparently, it wasn't until about three hours later that the correct and tragic information was confirmed. That's a terribly long gap, and that's one of the reasons why people have a right to be incensed at the mining company for not standing up and offering total confirmation or denial, and at the media for not insisting on an official confirmation. UPDATE: Read this interesting text of a press conference with the head of the company that owns the mine.
As Mitchell writes:

It took three hours for the coal company to correct the reports. It is unclear why the media carried the news without proper sourcing. Some reports claim the early reports spread via cell phones and when loved ones started celebrating most in the media simply joined in.
In reality, rescuers had only confirmed finding 12 miners and were checking their vital signs. But what leaked out to anxious family members was that 12 were found alive.
A company spokesman, sounding like another Michael Brown, explained, ''Let's put this in perspective. Who do I tell not to celebrate? I didn't know if there were 12 or 1 [who were alive].''

There are a ton of other stories out there for you to read and it will likely be a few days before a clearer picture emerges. At this point, however, the time line seems to be:

• Rescuers find 12 miners
• Families hear/spread rumor that all 12 are alive
• Rumors spread among those gathered and reach the media
• AP publishes a somewhat skeptical report
• Other press outlets drop the skepticism and run with the good news whole hog
• Meanwhile, the mining company does nothing (and will continue to do nothing for 3 hours) to get the truth out
• Story and hope spreads around the world until roughly 3 a.m.
• The truth comes and all hell breaks loose

We'll continue to track updates and adjust our post accordingly.

Of lies and lawyers

Australia's national public broadcaster, the ABC, has apologized for a transcription error that made it sound as if a 16 year-old seeking asylum was apologizing for "lies" that caused his family to be deported. In fact, he was blaming his family's "lawyers." Scroll down a bit or click here to read a similar example from a US newspaper. A story from The Age explains:

THE ABC has been forced to apologise for misquoting the teenage sons of Australia's highest-profile asylum seekers, the Bakhtiyari family.
The national broadcaster issued a transcript of its AM radio program on Wednesday quoting 16-year-old Alamdar Bakhtiyari apologising for the "lies" that led to his family's deportation.
The national media picked up on the comments, which were made during an ABC interview with Alamdar and his brother Montazar, 14, in Pakistan.
But the ABC last night issued a statement saying it had misquoted Alamdar. It said Alamdar had blamed lawyers, and not his family's lies, for their deportation to Pakistan on December 30.
"I don't blame the Australian Government for all this," he said in relation to the Bakhtiyaris' deportation. "I myself, now I can understand what's happening, it was not the Australian Government who caused us to be deported. It was all caused by our lawyers."
However, the original ABC transcript said: "It was all caused by our lies."
"Due to a mistake in transcription, the word 'lawyers' was misheard and written as 'lies'," the ABC said in its statement. "The website has now been amended to correct the error, for which the ABC apologises."
...

Here's the full ABC statement:

On ABC radio's "AM" current affairs program yesterday (October 5th, 2005) a story quoted Alamdar Bakhtiari, who (along with the rest of his family) was deported to Pakistan by the Australian Government in December last year.
In that story, Alamdar Bakhtiari said "I don't blame the Australian Government for all this. I myself, now I can understand what's happening, it was not the Australian Government who caused us to be deported. It was all caused by our lawyers."
The transcript of the story was later posted on the ABC's website, and it contained an error.
Due to a mistake in transcription, the word "lawyers" was misheard and written as "lies".
The website has now been amended to correct the error, for which the ABC apologises.

Networks argue over false death report

According to at least one Canadian media outlet, former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard died last night. In reality, he's alive and well. So now it's time for our favorite game: Who Reported It First?

In one corner is CTV, a private English national broadcaster that reported Bouchard died yesterday afternoon. In another corner is Radio-Canada, the publicly funded French broadcaster that says CTV wrongly blamed it for first reporting the death. Here's what each side said in an article by the Canadian Press:

Catherine Cano, news director of RDI, demanded the correction from Newsnet after the CTV network reported Bouchard had died, attributing the information to Radio-Canada.
"It's completely crazy and completely false," Cano said in an interview.
"Where the hell did they get that information? I'm really pissed off. It's totally false and I hate the idea that people might think we made that (mistake).\
CTV apologized to Bouchard and his family and admitted the report "incorrectly attributed the source of the information to Radio-Canada" in a statement issued late Thursday.
Tom Haberstroh, CTV vice-president of news, also apologized and said an investigation was underway to find out how the mistake was made.
"We're still investigating, it's going to take a while," Haberstroh said.
"What I can tell you is we take pride in Newsnet, we take pride in its accuracy and we made an incorrect report. We apologize for it and we're investigating it," he said, adding the report was corrected within a minute of airing.

This is the request for retraction that Radio-Canada put over the wire:

CTV Newsnet directly quoted Radio-Canada as having announced the death of former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard this afternoon. In reality, however, this news was not reported at any time by either Radio-Canada or RDI, its 24-hour information network. Given the significance of this false report, Radio-Canada has asked CTV for a public retraction.

More from the CP article:

Cutting into regular coverage with a Breaking News graphic, CTV's 24-hour news network credited a Radio-Canada report and said Bouchard had died at the age of 66.
Calling it dramatic news, political expert Mike Duffy began eulogizing Bouchard, saying he had a "profound impact on Canadian history" before bringing the story to a halt.
Duffy and CTV Newsnet anchor Kate Wheeler then grinned sheepishly and said they were "happy to report Lucien Bouchard is alive and well."
"I don't know why Radio-Canada has been reporting that but indeed, now we're glad to report he's still alive," Wheeler said on the air.
Cano said she and other colleagues at the English and French networks of the CBC pored over tapes to see where Newsnet might have gotten the idea.
She said nothing even came close to saying Bouchard was dead.
"I'm so angry, I could sue," Cano said. "It's our credibility at play here."
Bouchard was mentioned Thursday in RDI reports dealing with a special on the 1995 referendum, where Bouchard was a key figure. Mention was made of the illness that nearly took his life a few months earlier.
Duffy said the network had been chasing the news for about 30 minutes before going live with the story, making phone calls to people close to Bouchard and the law firm where he works.

Duffy's claim that CTV spent "about 30 minutes" trying to confirm the story is suspect. A source at a Montreal newspaper told Regret last night that, after hearing of CTV's report, it only took a few minutes to call Bouchard's law firm and get confirmation that he wasn't dead. Either CTV folks spent 30 minutes calling the wrong people, or they didn't really check at all before putting it on the air. As of now, CTV hasn't put an official statement/correction/retraction over the wire. Email us if you see one.

Failure of evolution theory exposed!

In our report on the debate in Kansas over teaching evolution, we mistakenly said that evolution is a way of explaining how life began. Darwin's theory explains how the diversity of different life forms came to be but does not address the origin of life.

Iraq not quite so hellish

Temperatures in Iraq do not reach 140 degrees in summer, as reported. The highest temperature ever recorded anywhere is 136. Baghdad in the middle of summer averages 110.

A listener with a sense of humor

We misidentified a sociologist in a story about a study he conducted. Ross -- not Robert -- Koppel and his colleagues found that high-tech hospital computer programs were increasing, rather than decreasing, both errors and stress. Koppel wrote us, saying, "This is a unique error which has created another difficulty: My older son now calls me BOB."

BBC editor: Journalists must comment on the news

BBC economics editor Evan Davis has an interesting article on the BBC's NewsWatch site about the need for journalists to comment and make judgments on stories.
Some excerpts:

One of the biggest surprises I had when I entered journalism was discovering that, contrary to everything I had ever supposed, it is not the case that "comment is free, and facts are sacred"
...Good reporting is not about broadcasting the noise of data on to the public.
It is about making judgements as to the significance of the available facts, and the pattern that fits them together.
While audiences yearn for journalism that is impartial and factual, which impartial journalist's selection of the facts do they want?
The one who picks the statistics to show taxes have gone up? Or the one who selects a statistic to show they have gone down? You can certainly find both.
Do you really want Jeff Randall to report a British Airways profit figure, without "commenting" on whether that is good or bad? Or without a "comment" on why it is up or down?
Merely to report the figure would be of no use at all, leaving the vast bulk of viewers in the dark as to what the figure means.
...Journalists make judgements all the time.
In politics, diplomacy, economics, business, and social affairs the BBC's strength has to be in interpreting data, as the public would not tolerate us simply reporting it.
And reporting it would itself involve hidden judgements about what we report.
However, for a licence fee funded organisation, this does impose special responsibilities.
There is inevitably a fine line between applying our best judgement to a story, and giving a biased account of it based on our personal view.
And journalists at the BBC have to ensure they avoid overstepping that line.
Usually (but I stress not always) the best practice is to give an interpretation to a story that conforms to a few simple criteria:

• It should not be partisan on an issue that divides the public. (Note, you can be as biased as you like on an issue that does not divide the public: we have relatively few complaints about biased reporting of the national sports teams).
• It should give due weight to the body of expert opinion on the subject (we don't want the idiosyncratic rantings of a particular correspondent).
• It should be clear in a report (by the tone, and the form of coverage) whether the reporter is giving a fact, an impression, an obvious interpretation or a personal hypothesis...

Novak corrects himself

Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media watchdog, has an item highlighting a recent self correction by syndicated columnist and pundit Robert Novak. It also takes Rush Limbaugh to task for not making the same correction:

While syndicated columnist and CNN host Robert Novak has corrected his earlier misquotation of Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, originally identified by Media Matters for America, syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, who played an audio clip of Novak's misquotation on his show, has yet to issue a correction to his listeners.

During the March 1 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh aired Novak's misquote, in which Novak falsely claimed that during an appearance at Cornell University, Dean said that Social Security is "going to lose about 80 percent of the benefits" over time. "Here's Howard Dean up there admitting to students at Cornell it's a big problem," Limbaugh proclaimed.

And here's Novak's correction from the March 4 edition of CNN's Inside Politics:

NOVAK: Yes, on Monday, I said -- I misspoke myself. I said that the new Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean had said in a speech at Cornell University that the Social Security fund in 30 years would be 80 -- would lose 80 percent of its value. What I meant to say, and what I should have said, is what he said that, that it would, after 30 years, it would be 80 percent of its present value, so it would lose only 20 percent. But he still said there is a problem on Social Security, which is not the party line.

BBC apology

The BBC, who we just added to our listing of Broadcast Corrections links, has one of the better corrections pages out there. Rather than simple correction notices, it will publish what amount to articles about its errors. It also has a fascinating (to us, at least) page that publishes its responses to complaints from the public.

Earlier this week, the BBC published an apology for "incorrectly broadcasting figures which suggested more Iraqi civilians had been killed by coalition and Iraqi forces than by insurgents." It reads:

The information was based on figures given by the Iraqi Ministry of Health to the BBC's Panorama programme. The statistics concerned the number of people killed in conflict-related violence in the second half of 2004.
The figures said that 3,274 people had died in that period, 2,041 of them as the result of "military operations".
The other 1,233 deaths were attributed to "terrorist operations".
The BBC reported the figures as suggesting that coalition and Iraqi forces could be responsible for up to 60% of conflict-related civilian deaths in Iraq.
However, the Iraqi Ministry of Health then clarified that the figures included not just civilians, but also insurgents and Iraqi security forces. And it said that the phrase "military operations" referred to Iraqis killed by insurgents as well as coalition or Iraqi forces.
The ministry said the BBC had misinterpreted the figures.
The figures were not used in John Simpson's report on Sunday's Panorama programme, as it was still being prepared for broadcast and changes were made. However, the statistics were given out in other news reports.
"The Iraqi Ministry of Health has issued a statement clarifying matters that were the subject of several conversations with the BBC before the report was published, and denying that this conclusion can be drawn from the figures relating to 'military operations'," said the BBC in a statement.
"The BBC regrets mistakes in its initial published and broadcast reports."

Fragment of a correction

We're not exactly in a strong position when it comes to pointing out grammatical errors (go here and laugh at our stupidity). But this NPR correction is in need of a little sentence fragment repair. Also, we're left wondering what part of the piece was omitted?

A correction involving Sylvia Poggioli's recent story on a newly uncovered Vatican directive instructing French Catholic authorities not to return baptized Jewish children to their parents after World War II. A section of the piece was inadvertently omitted during production. As a result, the piece failed to adequately represent the views of Catholics advocating the beatification of Pius XII, the pope who approved the document.