I Might be Wrong

Today, only a week or so after the blogs, the New York Times public editor took one of his paper's writers out behind the woodshed.

The obituary the Times ran on Walter Cronkite a few weeks back has been corrected a staggering eight times. Considering these things are usually written months ahead of time, I mean, Cronkite was 92, it's surprising that so many mistakes could slip through. And not just dumb errors, but the dates of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination and the moon landing. As one would hope, the paper's ombudsman cracked his knuckles and went to work.

In a rather smug way (as is his style), Clark Hoyt outlined how this cannot happen at the paper of record. He makes a few excuses, most notably that word didn't come in until 8 p.m., but that's not really legitimate here. I remember the Cronkite family announcing a week or two beforehand that he was very sick.

Here's the telling 'graph in his assessment.

--
Until the Cronkite errors, she was not even in the top 20 among reporters and editors most responsible for corrections this year. Now, she has jumped to No. 4 and will again get special editing attention.
--

Consider me the naive one, but I never thought the times had a known ranking of the the most corrected journalists. Makes sense, of course, but it's quite the beating.

Still, I love public editors. They rip the paper when need be and represent it better than most. Having someone on the inside who reads the letters and acts as a liaison, if I may adopt some corporate speak, between the readers and writers is very important. Ironic as it is, journalists have a bad habit of growing more cynical and distant from the audience they essentially work for, something they desperately need to stop.

When you write a fairly straightforward obit, even under a very near deadline, and cause eight corrections in the country's best newspaper, it's best to count your blessings that you still have a job.

-30-
You know when it's called "How Did This Happen?" that someone is in trouble