Slashdot Mirror
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.
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"?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
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.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
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.
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 based on user account deletion
... 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
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.
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?
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.
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".