Viral news curator Upworthy featured a video that put McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets under a microscope to reveal “strange fibers, blue objects, red coloring and other odd shapes.”
That’s what the description of the video on YouTube says it shows — and as of this writing, the clip has nearly 2.7 million views. But as for actually offering anything of scientific or factual value, it comes up far short.
After featuring it, Upworthy realized it wasn’t a piece of content worth sharing. Part of that realization came via comments on Upworthy’s Facebook page, where people called out the organization for “fear mongering” and a lack of analysis and facts.
Upworthy did the right thing and issued a correction. And because it’s Upworthy, let’s take note of the headline: “CORRECTION: That Time We Let Pretend Science Ruin Real Science And Decided To Apologize For It.”
They also adopted an interesting storytelling method for the correction. That choice inspired a debate on Twitter today among journalists such as Josh Stearns of Free Press, News Corp executive Raju Narisetti and Amanda Zamora of ProPublica. (This, even through the correction was first published back in August.)
“Rather than explain the problems ourselves, we’re going to let all our brilliant commenters do it for us,” read the correction, which went on to highlight several Facebook comments that took the site to task.
A correction driven by community reaction, which highlights that reaction? Great.
But what about the GIFs? Yes, the correction also features GIFs of Upworthy staff members saying sorry interspersed throughout the Facebook comments. The image above is one of them.
Sincere or flippant?
Here are two of the GIFs in question:
Josh Stearns kicked things off by initially sharing the correction with a positive comment:
Now this is how you do a correction. upworthy.com/correction-tha… Attention news orgs.
— Josh Stearns (@jcstearns)
February 23, 2014
That brought reaction and discussion:
But are they really sorry @Upworthy or just trolling for engaged PVs? MT @jcstearns: this is how you do a correction upworthy.com/correction-tha…
— Raju Narisetti (@raju)
February 23, 2014
@raju @jcstearns Agree. There is a flippancy to that @Upworthy correction; thinly-veiled contempt masquerading as regret.
— NYTFridge (@NYTFridge)
February 23, 2014
Disagree MT @NYTFridge: @raju @jcstearns Agree. There is a flippancy to that correction; thinly-veiled contempt masquerading as regret
The gifs on this @Upworthy correction are intensely grating and cutesy and annoying http://t.co/0dqoFjuP1v
— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) February 23, 2014
— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi)
February 23, 2014
My sense is that the curiosity gap doesn’t work without trust. If readers don’t trust what you post no headline will save you. @raju
— Josh Stearns (@jcstearns)
February 23, 2014
@jcstearns if GIFs make me question intent then it defeats purpose of being serious about correcting regretfully..
— Raju Narisetti (@raju)
February 23, 2014
@NYTFridge @raju @jcstearns @Upworthy any correction that raises more Qs than it answers isn’t helpful. also, those gifs
— Amanda Zamora (@amzam)
February 23, 2014
@jcstearns @amzam @raju so conflicted! Citing audience: +1, making correction spreadable +1, org & individual apology +1, gifs? not so much
— J. Nathan Matias (@natematias)
February 23, 2014
What’s the verdict?
A few thoughts from me:
Bravo for experimenting. I love the ambition and the attempt to do something different. News organizations’ corrections should represent their culture and voice. The Economist does it. BuzzFeed (now) does it. I’m personally not crazy about the addition of the GIFs for the reason cited in my next point, but I appreciate the effort to bring something new to the correction— something that may in fact resonate with their audience. (See my final point.)
A distraction? I agree with Narisetti and Zamora that it’s a net negative if a correction causes people to question its sincerity. There should be no question, no opportunity for misinterpretation. Corrections must bring clarity, not confusion. It must also be clear what was wrong — and that’s not explicit from Upworthy.
Accountability. I suspect one reason for the GIFs is Upworthy wants to show that its staff takes this issue seriously. They are literally putting their faces forward and saying sorry. That’s the one aspect of the use of GIFs that I like. They’re saying, “We’re the people who should have done better and we’re sorry we didn’t.”
Think about the tools/narrative. What if instead of GIFs the staff had created a short video including clips in which they said the same things? I have a feeling it would seem more sincere to people: GIFs carry some baggage, with people seeing them as flippant and jokey in most contexts. So, consider whether the tools and narrative devices you use in a correction will hurt or help your efforts. And look at what you’ve done and ask, “Do these GIFs help people get the right message, or could they be misinterpreted?”
What happened? One thing you don’t get a very good sense of from the correction is why the video was such an issue, and how the mistake happened. If you scroll down towards the end of the correction, Upworthy shares that it has a fact-checking team (emphasis theirs):
We have a very cohesive and well-implemented vetting and fact-checking process at Upworthy. Editors look at content before it’s curated for our site. Our trained fact-checking team investigates finalized content before we publish it for public consumption.
And what happened this time? “Yet somehow, ALL of us totally blew it on this one.” It would be good to know a bit more about the failure point. (I’ve emailed for more information.)
Two encouraging items included in the correction are the promise from Upworthy to introduce a dedicated corrections page, and their stated commitment to “be damn sure we’ll try to give the correction as much attention as we gave the original piece of content.” (Emphasis theirs.)
Upworthy knows how to make content spread, and needs to bring those skills to bear when it comes to corrections. It’s great that they recognize it.
What do the fans think? Enough about what journalists say. How did the correction go over with Upworthy’s Facebook community? As far as I can tell, with its close to 500 shares and more than 4,000 likes as of this writing, people seem to love it. Some sample comments:
In the end, I suspect that’s the feedback Upworthy cares about most.
I’ve emailed Upworthy for more information about the correction and will update with any new information.
Correction: A previous version of this story characterized the Upworthy video as recently posted. It was posted in August 2013.
Comments