With a bit of a lull in the hectic pace of news that’s happened lately (or in between more White House defections, take your pick), we thought we’d lighten up and talk about corrections.
Hey wait, before your head explodes in outrage … we know this is often a serious matter, so we’re not here to diminish the importance of setting the record straight.
It’s just that we’re only a little more than two months into 2018, and we already have some major contenders for Poynter’s annual roundup of the year’s best.
Here, without comment — because really, the corrections say it best — are our current favorites:
From an otherwise dry piece about trade facts in the New York Times:
From a piece about the implausibility of Brooklyn barbecue being a "thing," from the Washington Post:
And from the Associated Press:
We hate to ask, but what did we miss?
Now, let’s see if we can bring you the rest of our media roundup without a correction of our own.
Quick hits
Text of Sinclair script to be read from local TV anchors, screengrab via CNN
SINCLAIR PUSHES EXECS TO TAKE TRUMP ‘FAKE NEWS’ TACK: The Trump-friendly TV ownership powerhouse Sinclair Broadcasting is pressuring its news anchors to read a script that sounds like Trump propaganda to unwitting American viewers. "I felt like a POW recording a message," CNN’s Brian Stelter quoted one of the anchors as saying. The script requires anchors to echo Trump’s decrying of purported “fake news” from some of America’s top, most stringently factual news outlets — but make no mention of the hundreds of inaccuracies and falsehoods Trump has made as president. The scripts cannot be edited, and viewer feedback goes to Sinclair headquarters — not to the local stations.
… AND AT THE SAME TIME: Sinclair also is moving forward on questionable "sales" of Chicago and New York stations to stay under FCC ownership limits. Under the plan, both stations would have family connections to Sinclair’s chief. Under the agreement, Sinclair would still operate both Chicago’s WGN “superstation” and New York’s WPIX, with an option to buy them, Bloomberg’s Todd Shields reports.
HIRED: Emily Witt, who wrote an extraordinary profile of the Parkland teens behind the Never Again movement, as a national staff writer at The New Yorker, per memo. Witt is the author of “Future Sex” and “Nollywood: Making of a Film Empire.”
GET THE MONEY FIRST: That’s the advice of former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, in an interview with The Weekly Standard’s Alice Lloyd. Then-publisher Arthur Sulzberger called her to offer her the job in 2011 — and it escaped her to ask what her predecessors had earned. “My advice to younger women now is don't do what I did,” Lloyd quotes Abramson as saying. “Just be very straightforward and ask those questions. I was stupid not to."
GET NEWS. NOT TOO QUICKLY. AVOID SOCIAL: Like the food writer Michael Pollan, the NYT’s Farhad Manjoo modified his diet. Instead of meat and potato chips, Manjoo gave up the vibrations, bells and dopamine hits of digital media, relying almost entirely on print. “You realize how much of what you get online isn’t quite news, and more like a never-ending stream of commentary, one that does more to distort your understanding of the world than illuminate it,” he writes. “What’s important is choosing a medium” — a podcast, a newsletter (ahem!), a once-a-day scan — “that highlights deep stories over quickly breaking ones.”
GET THE FACTS: AP announced it was teaming up with Facebook to identify and debunk false and misleading stories related to the U.S. midterm election that are circulating on the platform. AP executive editor Sally Buzbee said it would be a 50-state effort. "Fact checking has long been a critical component of AP’s coverage of campaigns and government, and we are thrilled to work with Facebook to further surface that strong, fact-based reporting among members of its community,” she said.
CAN YOU LEAN ON FACEBOOK TOO MUCH?: And is that a mistake for a video publisher like ATTN? Those are the questions Digiday’s Lucia Graves asks in this report of the once-wildly successful L.A.-based outlet, which depends almost entirely on the algorithm-shifting social network for its viewership.
TRUMP TOWN: Did this presidential appointee come from the Koch network, the Heritage Foundation, Jones Day, or the Trump Organization? A ProPublica database of 2,475 appointees has those answers. At least 187 Trump political appointees have been federal lobbyists, many now overseeing the industries they once lobbied for.
TWITTER NEOPHYTES: Just because they are young doesn’t mean the social media savvy Parkland students knew Twitter. Emma González was more of a Tumblr and Instagram fan before, but the students have been able to keep attention on making schools safe by relying on the social medium preferred by President Trump and many journalists. What about Facebook? “Facebook is not really used by the people in my community,” González said.
NME ENDING PRINT EDITION: The iconic British music weekly, begun in 1952 as New Musical Express, is ending its print edition after 66 years. The champion of British pop from the Beatles to Bowie to Blur, the initials NME became so ubiquitous that when asked what the initials meant, the most popular answer was “It’s Wednesday” — the day it hit the stands. Here’s our favorite song mentioning the NME: “Top of the Pops,” by the Kinks.
ALEXA, STOP LAUGHING DAMMIT!!: It seems the device has started cackling randomly, and people are freaked out. (Warning: the audio might trigger nightmares.)
THE NOTORIOUS ‘RBG’ TRAILER IS OUT: The CNN Films documentary from filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is scheduled to open in theaters May 4. Here’s your first look. She was a big hit at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
What we're reading
ENCOURAGED: Teachers around the country, after the victory of their West Virginia colleagues in getting a raise after a wildcat strike, reports The Atlantic’s Alia Wong. “We’re getting support from teachers all over — Alaska, New Mexico, Oklahoma. … These places are saying, ‘We know that if they’ve done it in West Virginia, we can do it here, too,’” said Annette Jordan, a teacher at Hedgesville High School in Berkeley County.
REVOKED: The U.S. Holocaust Museum award to Aung San Suu Kyi, who has failed to denounce the genocide of her country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. The civilian leader of Myanmar won't even utter the word Rohingya in public.
HAIL AND FAREWELL: Trump’s education secretary came and went without taking questions or meeting with students Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but the Parkland students gave another visitor a hero’s welcome. “I just wanted to come and say I'm inspired by all of you,” said Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade. “I’m proud to say I’m from this state because of you guys and because of the future of this world." One of the 17 people killed in the high school shooting, Joaquin Oliver, was buried in his favorite Wade jersey, and the basketball player has paid tribute to Oliver by writing his name on his NBA game shoes.
OUTRAGE IN ASHEVILLE: He's walking home from his dishwashing shift at Cracker Barrel. Two police officers stop him for jaywalking. “All I’m trying to do is go home, man. I’m tired!” he says. They Taser him, choke him, beat him on the skull. And police body camera records it all. One officer has quit after an outcry, the NYT's Christina Caron reports.
(Screengrab)
DUDE: Is Women’s History Month really the best time to launch a series about male empowerment? Is that really what the world needs now? To Tucker Carlson, the answer is yes, reports The Wrap’s Jon Levine. “For some reason, you almost never hear about how men are doing in America,” says the Fox News host behind the March-long project. “You’ll be stunned by the scope of the crisis.”
DUDE, ABIDE: Critics pelted “The Big Lebowski” when it was released 20 years ago. The Washington Post gathered those words, then asked those critics about second thoughts on the cult classic. “The bottom line is that I missed the point,” says one-time dude disser Alex Ross of the New Yorker, adding that he’s better off reviewing classical music now than movies.
That’s it from here. Enjoy your morning beverage.
Want to get this briefing in your inbox every weekday morning? Subscribe here.
