Tag: credibility

St. Louis TV station does disservice to viewers

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St. Louis television station KMOV (Channel 4) did an extraordinary disservice to viewers on March 7. Anchor Sharon Reed read, in her usual dramatic style, this promo at 6:20 p.m.: “Tonight at 10, tainted beef on local store shelves. News 4 exposing a major alert that your family needs to know about before your next meal. Tonight at 10.” If it’s so important, tell us now … at dinnertime, no less. It was irresponsible at best. Yet this story that was so vital did not air until 10:07 p.m. and was just 22 seconds long.

Social media campaign by former Post-Dispatch writer alleges mistakes in series about mistakes

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BY WILLIAM H. FREIVOGEL / The “Jailed by Mistake” project published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch this past fall had all of the earmarks of enterprising journalism in the public interest. By the time the project went to press Oct. 27, the Post-Dispatch reported that 100 people had been arrested in error over the past seven years and had spent a collective 2,000 days in jail. But in the months since publication, a former Post-Dispatch editorial writer who went to work for St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay meticulously documented what he thinks were mistakes in the series about mistakes. The top Slay administration official, Eddie Roth, has gone about it in an unorthodox way: He has published a series of criticisms on his Facebook page that have run even longer than the original series.

Prosecutor urges independent audit of Post-Dispatch series

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BY WILLIAM H. FREIVOGEL / St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce has called upon St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor Gilbert Bailon to order an “independent audit of the reporting” for the paper’s high-profile “Jailed by Mistake” investigation. She wrote in a Nov. 26 letter to Bailon that her staff had found “substantial factual errors” in the paper’s conclusion that more than 100 people had been mistakenly jailed for more than 2,000 total days.

Editor’s Note: Print media sets regrettable trend on corrections

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by William A. Babcock / My Paris correspondent had trouble walking, chewing gum and correctly using the English language. Heck, he didn’t even have to be meandering with a Dentyne wad in his mouth to muck up his mother tongue. I knew this, as I should, being his state­side editor. So imagine my great joy when I saw I’d be editing three Page 1 stories for the next day’s paper, and knowing that his would be the last one to arrive at my desk, and thus giving me a grand total of 10 minutes, tops, to edit his piece.