Wired Amends Stories With Fabricated Quotes

SiliconEntity writes "Wired Online has been forced to correct dozens of stories in the wake of disclosures that reporter Michelle Delio may have fabricated quotes. Wired has published over 700 stories by Delio since 2000, and in a review of 160 of the most recent ones, 24 were found to have quotes that could not be confirmed. Several of the Wired stories being questioned were discussed on Slashdot, including Spyware on My Machine? So What?, Minniapple's Mini Radio Stations, The Masters of Memory Lane, and probably many more. Wired is not the only one to get burned; MIT Technology Review and InfoWorld have also had to retract or alter stories written by Delio." Update: 05/10 19:20 GMT by Z : Altered to clarify Wired's actions.

Comments

Shattered Glass

[NekoXP]

After everyone finishes watching Revenge of the Sith, go watch Shattered Glass.
Hayden Christiansen does a great job in it, and it's a great movie (and true
story/book too..)

Random audits

[winkydink]

While it would be difficult to check every source for every story, not checking them leads less-than-scrupulous journalists into temptation. Why not have a publication select a number of sources at random and check them? Wouldn't this go a long way towards "keeping honest people honest"?

Trusting the media

[thewiz]

It seems we just can't trust most of the mainstream media today. It seems that schools that teach journalism skip teaching about integrity, ethics, and the responsibility for reporters to be objective.

I think I'll just stick to Groklaw and forget the rest of the press.

Re:Trusting the media

[MattHaffner]

It seems we just can't trust most of the mainstream media today.

No, I'm sorry you still have to think. And yes, it helps to be a critical thinker. Not only are the sources of information occasionally biased and sometimes fictional, they sometimes are even unintentionally wrong.

It seems that schools that teach journalism skip teaching about integrity, ethics, and the responsibility for reporters to be objective.

Right, because we know that every student utilizes what they learn in school. Revoke their charters to issue degrees!

I know, let's blame the "pressure" of the market to bring "quality" stories to the table. It's the publishers' faults. Boycott!

Hey, how about we actually call it what it is: a reporter who made shit up for ego, money, to have more time to play WoW, or whatever. Is it so hard for us to take responsibility these days that we can't even blame an individual for doing something fundamentally wrong?

Re:Trusting the media

[MoralHazard]

If you really need think this is based on a story about an obscure for a fairly obscure magazine, then you clearly haven't been on Planet Earth lately.

Come on, seriously--give me a little credit, huh? I know what Wired magazine is, and all that.

My problem with the GGP post is that it's too easy to assume that bad behavior is pandemic and out-of-control, because that's the only time you notice it. Think about how many tens of thousands of professional journalists are writing for how many tens of publications, just in the USA, right now.

How in the hell does one guy's bad behavior translate into "It seems we just can't trust most of the mainstream media today." Even if you throw in Jason Blair of NYT fame, Dan Rather, and another dozen people who made stuff up or failed some kind of ethical standard, you're still talking about A DROP IN THE BUCKET compared to the number out there who seem to be doing their jobs properly!

Do you work in IT? Because the GGP's statement, and yours, are kind of like people reading about Kevin Mitnick of the Lowes CC thieves and saying "You just can't trust most of these computer people today, they don't seem to have any ethical standards with all this hacking going on." It's an attack on the integrity of a lot of people who haven't done anything wrong.

Seriously, it's an intellectually lazy statement that accuses an entire profession of corruption. That's a shitty thing to say.

Re:Trusting the media

[KillerDeathRobot]

Actually, you're the one being either intellectually lazy or purposely intellectually dishonest. Not trusting the mainstream media is VERY different from not trusting individual journalists -- that's really a strawman argument.

Guess what? You CAN'T trust computer people in general because of the actions of hackers and others. This is why IT security exists. A few bad computer people can do enormous damage. In the same way, a few bad journalists here and there can have a huge impact. Think about this: if someone publishes complete fabrications and never gets caught, those fabrications stand as published truths which other journalists will cite, which could then themselves be cited later, etc.

Not implicitly trusting the mainstream media is something like having a firewall in place. Most people out there aren't trying to hack your computer, but the possibility for such is great if you're not protected. Similarly, there are enough lazy, stupid, and/or malicious people out there that you should remember to keep a critical eye open with whatever you're reading.

Sloppy Editorial Oversight

[geomon]

The recent cases of reporters fabricating newstories only highlights how poor the editorial oversight is in the American newspaper industry. Most papers just put their news divisions on auto-pilot and never fact check, let alone spell check anything. I have seen an increase in shoddy writing and poorly attributed quotes since the mid-1980s. Because the larger American public doesn't seem to give a rats-ass, nothing gets done.

This is a hand wringing exercise by the American press. Readership has and will continue to fall off in favor of other news outlets, robbing the public of the detail that is required to make informed political decisions.

Great news for the rabid, camera-mugging politicians.

Better option!

[david.heyman]

Have their fellow reporters MetaModerate the articles. Each day you check the facts of ten randomly selected articles by your fellow reporters. Heck, small independent, free publications could MetaModerate each other.

Re:Whew!

[Jason Earl]

Slashdot, and other similar sites, are a little different because the whole point is to foster discussion. if someone invents a quote on the spot, or chooses a headline that doesn't fit the story, or whatever there are plenty of people that are willing to point that out. That's the point of Slashdot, it's more of a forum for discussion, than a news source (although once you get enough comments it becomes easy to do a little research and make your own informed decisions).

Michelle, on the other hand, was supposed to be reporting "news." It's often just as biased, but it's supposed to at least be verifiable. You might not agree with the conclusion, but not the facts that were presented. Heck, even on Slashdot the editors don't just make stuff up so that it fits their story.

Holy Prolific Journalism Batman!

[mapmaker]

Wired has published over 700 stories by Delio since 2000

That's more than a story every three days, including weekends, for over 5 years. And that's just for Wired - it doesn't include articles written for other publications!

Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but it seems there should have been the suspicion that someone who can discover, investigate and report on a newsworthy phenomenon every 2.5 days for 5 years straight might be cutting corners somewhere.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

My biggest complaint with reporters...

[SirBruce]

... it's not so much that editors don't fact-check, but that those quoted don't get the chance to fact-check. I've been interviewed a number of times, but I've never gotten to see the final text before publication. I think reporting would be much better if, once stories were written, those mentioned/quoted in the story had a chance to review what the article says and offer feedback to the reporter and editor. This could clear up a lot of misunderstandings and misquotes that neither party intended.

Bruce

Fabricated quotes?

[tuxlove]

The title of this story, Wired Amends Stories With Fabricated Quotes, is disingenuous at best. I could find no statement anywhere that the quotes in these articles were indeed fabricated. They simply state that the sources could not be confirmed, because they are anonymous. Now, if you decide you want to read between the lines and treat "unconfirmed" as "fabricated", that's certainly your right. But to put such a statement into a story headline only adds to slashdot's reputation as inflammatory and of questionable accuracy and motive.

Perhaps we need to see a headline on some other "news" site entitled "Slashdot Headline About Unconfirmable Quotes Cannot Be Confirmed".