This from today's Flint Journal (Page 2 corrections):
"Helen Dent still living
An article Friday about a real estate sale at the former Goodrich home of Harold and Helen Dent should have said Helen Dent is still alive, while her husband died in 1990. The article contained incorrect information."
The "incorrect" information was wording that made it sound like Mrs. Dent was dead, which she obviously is not.
Here's the link to the story, but remember it won't be there long:
http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/08/take_a_trip_through_flint_hist.html
Hard to know who made the error, but my wild guess is that an editor did it trying to shorten up the story. I've never had an editor kill one of my story subjects, but I have had them edit in misinformation, switched quotes and otherwise mangled a story because the editor was so much smarter and better than I.
An editor's motto should be the same as a doctor's: First, do no harm.
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2 comments:
The story as I read it was so ambiguous that the reader had no way of knowing whether the Dents were dead or alive. (There are plenty of estate sales and auctions of items whose owners are still kicking.)The lack of any kind of comment from the children (or acknowledgment that anyone atempted to contact them)was odd. The story could have used the hand of a competent editor.
I'm posting this for a friend, Otis P. Laputa:
Jim -- As a ex-Flint Journal veteran, I'd have to say my top suspect in the "who killed off Helen Dent" screw-up would be my all time favorite editor (yes, I'm being heavily sarcastic here), the bullying, no-talent punk you have sometimes refered to as the Editor in Charge of Corrections, or the EICOC for short. As has been stated here many times before, he was a terrible reporter who went on to be a terrible editor (That's just the Booth way, for those of you wondering how such a thing could happen)
>
> Gee, I wounder if he gave himself a sanctimonious third-degree in which he questioned his own intelligence and demanded to know how he was going to prevent himself from messing up another story? I wonder if he's sent a letter of apology to Helen, explaining how he offed her, and a memo to himself and the editor-in-absentia as to how he will make sure he doesn't do it again?
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> Oh, well, he's done it before. Several years ago, he rewrote the story of a friend of mine, and that particular reporter pointed out to the EICOC that he had edited factual errors into the story. The EICOC, who knows he is smarter than his reporters, defended his actions, saying, " I had to rewrite it, I didn't like your lede."
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> The reporter replied: "Well, you must not have liked the name of the guy the story was about, either, because you rewrote that and misspelled it."
>
> Just remember, kids, the editor is NEVER wrong.
>
> Otis P. Laputa
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