Fellow Bear-Flagger and LA Times watchdog Patterico subscribes to the ancient theory, "If you can't beat them, join them," and makes his debut appearance in this week's Sunday opinion section writing the "Outside the Tent" column. (unfortunately requires registration)
The subject of this column is errors and corrections, which I thought was highly appropriate for an outside observer to take on. The Times, and other major media outlets, need to seriously consider what their errors mean. With so much exposure, even an ambiguous statement in a major story could ruin the reputation or career of an innocent person. It should be the aim of a responsible journalistic outfit to correct those errors with as much fanfare as the original story, i.e. that mistakes printed on the front page should be corrected on the front page. It should also be the aim of these organizations to minimize errors in the first place. Patterico also provides some suggestions as to how balancing the viewpoints of the staff in the newsroom and editorial board could catch more of these errors.
Patterico's reflections on the column are here.
