More on D&C letter o’ lies
One of our commenters spoke with the man who wrote the factually incorrect letter that the D&C published today (I am not reprinting the man’s name here since I do not want to encourage others to contact him). Here’s a snippet:
I started my conversation by acknowledging his right to express an opinion about Eliot Spitzer. Then I admonished him for writing lies about Eric Massa. He replied that the D&C checked the facts and printed his letter.
Now, Rotten suggest that it is unlikely that the D&C fact checks the letters it prints (I’m inclined to agree, since they are often inaccurate, though rarely so blatantly as this one). So I wonder: does the D&C have any policy about truthfullness in its letters to the editor?
If someone writes a letter in to the D&C claiming that a candidate is a serial killer and drug addict — and these assertions have no support in any kind of public record — would the D&C refuse to run it?
I realize there’s gray area here — the D&C is not responsible for the content of the letters and lacks the resources to thoroughly fact check all of them (I don’t think they fact check their editorials that carefully, either, to be honest). But I don’t think that the letter o’ lies they ran earlier today is in that gray area — it’s on the wrong side of good journalistic practices.
Related posts:
A policy of truthiness perhaps… This is an outrage. I cannot even begin to understand where they get off allowing something like this to be printed.
Either they didn’t “fact check” this letter, or they have a staff that’s incompetent at best or partisan and dishonest at worst.
The D&C should print a full retraction and apologize to Mr. Massa.
I think that Mr. Beetz needs to apologize for what he wrote and the D&C needs to apologize for printing it.
I think that Mr. Beetz needs to apologize for what he wrote and the D&C needs to apologize for printing it.
I know of at least two letters to the editor written in response to Mr. Beetz’s letter (me being one of them)….are there others who have written letters?
I’m inclined to cut Mr. Beetz some slack. Lord knows, I’ve written some things that I misremembered in emails. The difference is, that before I’d put them on this blog — let alone a paper with a circulation of over 200,000 — I’d check the basic facts. That’s why I blame the D&C, not Mr. Beetz.
The D&C does have a fact check policy. If you are stating opinions that go against those in power you need to provide rigorously sourced data. And not just any source- it should be a major corporate publication. Every time someone from Metro Justice sends in a Speaking Out piece we provide links for every factual assertion. We do this because we know that we have to try twice as hard to get half as far in the corporate media. Don’t get me wrong- we’ve got a great working relationship with Kathy Wagner and she seems like a nice person. But judging from some of the outlandish Speaking Out pieces, it doesn’t seem like they have asked other folks to source their claims. As for the letters page, they have someone new working there. That other guy (Oriole or something) was printing insane stuff from fundamentalists about how this is a Christian nation etc. Oy veh.
Yep.
[...] reader just sent me the reply he received from from Max Anderson (about the letter o’ lies) via email and I’m passing it along: I’m sure that you know, we’ve been flooded [...]