joanek

re: fact checking. I realize I'm taking this off topic, as we're dealing with a feature and that the following will only be of interest to other newsrooms, but.... at my place of employment, a 3 source rule is still in effect for breaking stories. Is that still the norm for hard stuff?
Of course, my beat is now music and that rule doesn't come up too often. But even in local dc radio, it was 2 sources.

yyz-den

Mileagerunner

She did.

I may as well change my handle to my real name after this!!

Hopefully I am not violating some journalistic rule known only to journalists by posting this extract - it is from the WSJ Online and was published Aug 07.

Here is the beginning of the article emailed to me by one of the WSJ Online editors.

essxjay

Are you talking weekly or daily in your experience?

To be perfectly honest, major dailies just can't afford to be sloppy.

I'm not going to fire off a debate about the relative practices of The Chron v. The Oregonian (both top 25 newspapers), but I will speak on first reference about _my_ paper's accuracy practices: The Oregonain is very heavy on those who cause printable corrections and clarifications.

For example, I made a stupid, factual mistake last week (only my fourth in 15 years) that I had to write an official correction for.

It had to do with the fact that I composed a 7-inch story on a page whose template file name just happened to be identical to a file name in a writer's desk! Big mistake! Never assume!!

I felt horrible. And I was called on the carpet for my (unharmful) mistake. But readers are, well forgivably, unforgiving of factual errors.

squeakr

Daily....

ANd I don;t want to debate it either - my only point was that your response to loggia was taking a comment personally that I didn;t think was meant personally...and making a rather unhospitable response to it. The reality is that at least one big newspaper in SF that shall remain nameless does NOT do much fact checking unless the story involves a public figure and could be construed as slanderous...
fyi I dont think eithe rside is right on this one - some papers check religiously , some papers don;t. that doesn;t mean ALL papers check or NO papers check...

brentski

I have also been contacted on a few occasions by Ms.Costello. I told her that I had no problem with her using my opinion in a story but that I would not give permission to use my full name.She informed me that she would not be able to quote me without me agreeing to provide my full name.While I felt strongly about my position she wanted to use,I figured it wasn't worth the possible grief of having my name published with it(which I guess turned out to be the right move)

kokonutz

I hate to even comment again because it keeps IMHO besmirching the reporter in question to keep this thread alive. But I think that for the sake of fairness the situation we are talking about should be clarified.

Which is it:

1) The reporter found your post on the internet, somehow figured out your personal info then wrote the story. Now you are upset because you didnt realize that by posting on the World Wide Web that folks from all over the world might read the information contained in your post and even reprint it; OR

2) The reporter found your post on the internet, contacted you to see if you were willing to talk about the issue (a request to which you assented) THEN wrote the article, using some combination of your internet posts and your conversations with her. Now you are upset because you didnt realize that talking to a reporter means you are talking to a reporter, whose job it is to report what other people say and think.

As I've said, neither is unacceptable to me. But others feel that the first is less acceptable then the second.

But in fairness to the reporter, which is it?

yyz-den

kokonutz;

You seem to be missing the point, yes I did say that I would talk to her, but as that conversation never happened she could not possibly know what I was going to say to her.

edited to remove an unfair comment

[This message has been edited by yyz-den (edited 08-13-2001).]

kokonutz

Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying!

hfly

Jane,

Why don't you just state your facts and put this tiring thread to bed.

SeattleKev

Well, this topic certainly has been an education for me. While I obviously realize that anyone can read what I write here, I did not know that it could be reprinted in another publication. The "web" is a new world for many of us and we are learning as we go along, at least I am anyway.

TravelManKen

A little investigative reporting from Jane Costello for FT'ers...


August 14, 2001
Business Fare
Travelocity Customers Take Issue With Canceled Hotel Reservations
By JANE COSTELLO
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE


When Jim Brownell logged on to Travelocity.com to cancel a hotel reservation, he found someone else had beaten him to it.

Last March, Mr. Brownell, a retired teacher from Philadelphia, says he booked a reservation through Travelocity for a stay at the Mexico City Airport Hilton. He was one of approximately 50 travelers who took advantage of the fact that the hotel had inadvertently loaded a "zero" rate into the computer system, offering free stays for travelers.

Travelocity.com2

As reported, when Hilton learned of the error, the hotel chain agreed to honor the $0 rate for the first night, as long as guests agreed to pay a competitive rate for the remainder of their stay.

Mr. Brownell kept his reservation active on the chance that Hilton would change its mind and allow guests to stay more than one night for free. When that didn't happen, he decided to log on to Travelocity in June and cancel his reservation.

To his surprise, the reservation had already been canceled. When Mr. Brownell called Travelocity's customer-service center for an explanation, he was told that someone identifying himself as Mr. Brownell had called the day before to cancel.

"I hadn't planned to go, but at the time I thought, 'why not?' " says Mr. Brownell. "Now, I'm not going anywhere."

As it turns out, Mr. Brownell wasn't the only person whose reservation was canceled that day. Steve Kilian, who also took advantage of the free-room deal, booked a stay for three nights. When he logged on to Travelocity, he too found that his reservation also had been canceled without his knowledge.

Both travelers were suspicious and thought that someone from Hilton might have bypassed Travelocity's system and canceled the reservation in order to free up the "free" room for a paying customer.

Hilton spokeswoman Jeanne Datz says that isn't the case. She points out that both guests agreed to stay for subsequent nights at a rate of more than $100 a night.

Adding to the confusion, the two sets of reservations were canceled through Travelocity, not Hilton, within minutes of each other. In both cases, records indicate that the cancellation was done via telephone.

Officials at Travelocity can offer no explanation as to how the cancellations happened and say they will continue to research the issue.

"The whole thing is absurd," says Mr. Kilian. "What if I'd wanted to go? I'd be stuck."

Write to Jane Costello at [email protected]


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Ken in Sacramento