Fake News in Houston

[Cow Poke]

Houston Chronicle Retracts 8 Stories After Fraud Investigation: ‘We Apologize to Our Readers’

The Houston Chronicle announced Thursday that they had retracted eight stories after an internal investigation found they relied heavily on sources who seemingly did not exist.

“The relationship between a newspaper and its readers is one of trust,” said Chronicle executive editor Nancy Barnes in a piece explaining the decision. “This investigation points to an egregious breach of that trust that is an offense to readers and journalists alike. We apologize to our readers, and to the Houston community.”

“We will be correcting or retracting all of the affected stories in order to set the record straight to the best of our ability, as I promised when this was first brought to my attention,” she added.

[Sparko]

What were the stories about?

[Mountain Man]

"We will be correcting or retracting all of the affected stories in order to set the record straight to the best of our ability."

She went on to say, "And those corrections will be quietly released at the bottom of the classified page where our readers will be sure to overlook them."

[Cow Poke]

What were the stories about?

I'll get to this this evening - we're doing Car Clinic today at Church.

[Cow Poke]

From just a quick review of some of Mike Ward's reporting, he was a pro-Republican political writer who made up stories and attributed them to people nobody can find.

[Leonhard]

"We will be correcting or retracting all of the affected stories in order to set the record straight to the best of our ability."

She went on to say, "And those corrections will be quietly released at the bottom of the classified page where our readers will be sure to overlook them."

That wouldn't be different from any other news agency out there at least.

[Starlight]

On the one hand it's important for news outlets to be able to get stories from undercover sources and so reveal news that people in power don't necessarily want to be revealed in order to report to the public what is really happened in the world as opposed to just the official line on what is happened, and it's important those sources are protected from public disclosure.

On the other hand it's important for the news outlet itself to have solid internal mechanisms for ensuring individual journalists aren't just totally making up said sources. That's usually what typically distinguishes the more reliable publications from the less reliable ones. So it's good to see this newspaper announcing they've spotted problems and are moving to correct them.

[Cow Poke]

On the one hand it's important for news outlets to be able to get stories from undercover sources and so reveal news that people in power don't necessarily want to be revealed in order to report to the public what is really happened in the world as opposed to just the official line on what is happened, and it's important those sources are protected from public disclosure.

On the other hand it's important for the news outlet itself to have solid internal mechanisms for ensuring individual journalists aren't just totally making up said sources. That's usually what typically distinguishes the more reliable publications from the less reliable ones. So it's good to see this newspaper announcing they've spotted problems and are moving to correct them.

What's sad is that this guy - for quite some time - got away with just totally making stuff up, and it got published. It really makes one wonder how much of this stuff is going on elsewhere, as this is not the first example of this. It wasn't the newspaper itself that caught the errors - it was questions from readers challenging the stories.

[KingsGambit]

Reminds me of Jayson Blair with the New York Times awhile back.

It's good that the newspaper was forthcoming about what happened instead of hiding it.

[JimL]

What's sad is that this guy - for quite some time - got away with just totally making stuff up, and it got published. It really makes one wonder how much of this stuff is going on elsewhere, as this is not the first example of this. It wasn't the newspaper itself that caught the errors - it was questions from readers challenging the stories.

Not surprising it was a republican. They seem to be all about the propagation of fake news nowadays, starting with the President.

[Cow Poke]

Not surprising it was a republican. They seem to be all about the propagation of fake news nowadays, starting with the President.

I wondered if any dupe would come along and try to make this about it being a Republican. The fact is - fake news is wrong, regardless of who propagates. But thanks for playing.

[JimL]

I wondered if any dupe would come along and try to make this about it being a Republican. The fact is - fake news is wrong, regardless of who propagates. But thanks for playing.

Yeah right, too bad you didn't check out the source ahead of time then just like when fake news comes from the propaganda bubble you live in, you'd have ignored it.

[Cow Poke]

Yeah right, too bad you didn't check out the source ahead of time then just like when fake news comes from the propaganda bubble you live in, you'd have ignored it.

There ya go again, trying to be a mind reader, when you don't even know what goes on in your own big empty head.

Again - fake news is wrong from ANY source.

[KingsGambit]

There are lazy people in any profession who try to get by. We've all worked with them. If this were a liberal reporter, I'm sure some people here would be making it about that, but they shouldn't do that either. This is a pure case of laziness.

[oxmixmudd]

I wondered if any dupe would come along and try to make this about it being a Republican. The fact is - fake news is wrong, regardless of who propagates. But thanks for playing.

Yes, it is wrong wherever it comes from. But the difference between legit news outlets and posers is not that it mt happens, it is how publically and forcefully they make known the deception. It sounds like this news outlet is being transparent and inforing the public of the problem. That is what it should do. At this point, that is all it can do with regard to what has happened, unless there was other negligence that allowed so many false articles to make it to print.

This reporters reporting days are also likely over excepting some fly by night tabloid.

Jim