While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, I thought I caught them in a (relatively rare) factual error:
[Barack Obama's] subsequent [2004 U.S. Senate] victory was helped along by newspaper disclosures of embarrassing material from the divorce papers of a Democratic opponent.
Kaufman, Jonathan. “For Obama, Chicago Days Honed Tactics“. The Wall Street Journal 21 April 2008: A1.
I thought this passage referred to Jack Ryan, the at-the-time inevitable Republican nominee. Ryan’s candidacy was destroyed as his divorce papers revealed that his ex-wife alleged he forced her to go to sex clubs. However, the article later indicated that this passage referred to Blair Hull, a Democratic primary candidate whose divorce papers revealed he allegedly beat his ex-wife.
The Wall Street Journal did not escape completely unscathed, however, as I spotted this passage from the same article:
[In 2005, Obama] and his wife bought a mansion in Hyde Park for $1.65 million, $300,000 below the asking price.
Kaufman, Jonathan. “For Obama, Chicago Days Honed Tactics“. The Wall Street Journal 21 April 2008: A11.
Obama’s house is in Kenwood, not Hyde Park.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:31 am
Loved your project to fact check. Such citizen participation helps keep the media honest and accurate and in the bigger picture, supports democracy. Did you write in to ask for a correction? I encourage you to do so, if you have not.
I run a media ethics program at Art Science Research Laboratory founded with my late husband Stepehen Jay Gould. We work with students and citizens to publish media investigations and corrections. While each case study project is unique in terms of content, all follow a straightforward 5-step process:
1. contrasting, comparing and synthesizing local, regional or national media reports on a single event
2. identifying discrepant facts among the reports
3. pursuing clarification of contradictory information among reports
4. informing media outlets of any errors and asking for corrections
5. publishing the case study (including documents and e-mail exchanges with editors) on the CheckYourFacts.org and Stinkyjournalism.org site
You can read more
http://cyberbookplus.org/checkyourfacts.php .
Please submit one of your fact checking adventures to Stinkyjournalism.org.
If you asked for a correction in the Obama error above, for example, write and let us know how it turns out (eg, what the editors say, when and if corrected etc.)
I can say we will definitely publish the case study if you are willing.