So my last post linked to an article in the Des Moines Register by Nancy Clark. Lots of other bloggers linked to it also, and many of them contacted her via email or phone. I’m sure a fair number of them brought up the fact that she misused ‘voracity’ in place of ‘veracity.’ I figured there would be a correction made and, in that, I was correct. Looking today, guess what I found:
Editor’s note: A column by Nancy Clark published in Thursday’s newspaper included the incorrect use of the word “voracity”, instead of the word “veracity”. Clark submitted the column without the error. The mistake was generated by an editor after she filed the column.
– Bryce Miller, executive sports editor
So let me see if I follow this… the editors, one part of the crew upon which Ms. Clark’s entire article hinges… introduced error into the article? Error which, subsequently had to be corrected by folks contacting Ms. Clark and the Editor… and it took them several days to get it right.
If they had comments on their articles like blogs do, that error would’ve been corrected by commenters almost immediately.
It’s a minor problem when we’re talking about word choice, but when it comes to facts (and getting them wrong) papers may do it less often, but you can bet that those errors last longer. An error in a blog can be corrected as soon as it’s posted by an astute commenter — newspapers have to wait until the next edition where they’ll likely post a small retraction on page G32 in a 4 point font.
Besides, mainstream media types are not more capable of fact checking, they’re just used to doing it. It’s not an issue with the medium of blogging, but the bloggers themselves… a fault which many are not guilty of. So why is she not attacking those individual bloggers?
Because she’s scared. Probably frightened that there are a dozen football blogs out there that clearly know more about what’s going on than she does. Welcome to the year 2005, Ms. Clark. Staff reporters who regurgitate major news on the inner pages of random regional publications are officially obsolete.
Because I said so.