No correction necessary. Mere honesty should never stand in the way of any narrative that supports the progressive agenda (writ large).

This is the first I heard of my error. I immediately asked
Creators to issue a correction, and to apologize to editors for my mistake.

Here’s my question to Poynter’s Steve Myers and St. Petersburg Times’ Leonora
LaPeter Anton: Why did neither of you contact me to ask why I made this mistake? Aren’t you
committing the very lapse in reporting that you criticize? I find this particularly curious in light of the headline here, depicting the homelessness statistic as “apparently too good to check,” which suggests
a cynical – and false — agenda on my part. If you read my column, you
know that I wish there were no homeless children in America. You also know that
I question our country’s priorities when children like those profiled in the 60
Minutes story live in their fathers’ truck while a public university signs a
new football coach to a $4.4 million contract. Those are the points of my
column, and they don’t change with the corrected statistic that a third of homeless families without any kind of shelter live in Florida. That is still an appalling statistic.

I was wrong to rely on 60 Minutes reporter Scott Pelley’s figures.
He is one of the few journalists regularly diving deep on the issue of
children in poverty, and I trusted his research. I should have double-checked
his numbers, and I regret that. Had you bothered to contact me, I would have known of my error sooner, and corrected it faster. I also would have immediately owned my mistake, and explained how it happened. That wouldn’t make me right, but it would your story more fair. 

My email addresses are readily available through Creators,
but I will provide them here, too: schultz.connie@gmail.com
and con.schultz@yahoo.com.

Connie Schultz

Columnist

Creators Syndicate

You really are something. How does mischaracterizing the makeup of Florida’s homeless population support the “progressive agenda?”

I’m starting to think you must do this all the time. “Oh, damn, flat tire. Another instance of somebody pushing a progressive agenda.” “Progressives made me spill coffee all over my keyboard.” “My fed-up wife left me, as part of the scary progressive policies that are ruining our country.”

OK. How does any of what you say here counter the idea that the stat was too good to check? You pretty much just confirm it. Did Poynter get something wrong? If so, what? And since when is it Poynter’s (or anybody else’s) responsibility to inform you personally of your mistakes?  

@google-d3d1ad559996fa80a3bfd9d99770e82a:disqus , that’s a fair criticism — I could have contacted you first, which would have informed you of the error. I often do contact people for more information when I blog about them; I usually do it if I think I can push the story forward with additional reporting.

My post was aimed at journalists and others who follow journalism closely, which is why I wrote that headline. I think the simplicity of this statistic made it more compelling and contributed to its spread. The qualifier makes it more complicated and less quotable. As for intent, I didn’t read anything into anyone’s motives. I just think this shows how facts get misstated and spread.
Steve Myers
Poynter.org

@google-d3d1ad559996fa80a3bfd9d99770e82a:disqus , that’s a fair criticism — I could have contacted you first, which would have informed you of the error. I often do contact people for more information when I blog about them; I usually do it if I think I can push the story forward with additional reporting.

My post was aimed at journalists and others who follow journalism closely, which is why I wrote that headline. I think the simplicity of this statistic made it more compelling and contributed to its spread. The qualifier makes it more complicated and less quotable. As for intent, I didn’t read anything into anyone’s motives. I just think this shows how facts get misstated and spread.
Steve Myers
Poynter.org