January 5, 2006 9:09 AM
How the web let's media critics modify their views
One interesting aspect of yesterday's coverage of the erroneous headlines reporting that 12 West Virginia miners had been found alive was how Editor & Publisher Editor Greg Mitchell altered his column/story.
His original column said the following.
"In one of the most disturbing and disgraceful media performances of this type in recent years, television and newspapers carried the tragically wrong news late Tuesday and early Wednesday that 12 of 13 trapped coal miners in West Virginia had been found alive and safe. Hours later they had to reverse course, often blaming the mix-up on "miscommunication."
Now if you look at it you'll find that he's removed the word "disgraceful."
Mitchell had gone way over the line, as can happen. I think he correctly modulated his position.
But it might be worth it for him and others to step back into a newsroom on deadline to recall the pressures journalists experience. To describe the performance of newspapers as "disgraceful" is just that. A very shallow view.
Would Editor & Publisher not report the on-the-record comments of a newspaper executive immediately if they were of huge interest to the publication's readers?
I think the answer is obvious. That appears to me what the Associated Press did. Of course there are questions about how that happened and whether reporters could have asked different or better questions, but reporting in such circumstances is not like sitting in a ivory tower of a journalism trade publication.
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