No less an authority on truth than The New York Times, The Newspaper of Record, reveals what fact checking and error correction is all about.
In a demonstration of candor unparalleled in today's American journalism, NYT's "Public Editor" Arthur Brisbane discusses "The Error Iceberg" in Sunday's Week in Review, accompanied by the bold caption, "What do you do when you're told you are wrong 14,000 times a year?"
Well, you check your facts, of course, but that is decidedly not the end of it ...
Referring to a detail in a recent obituary - a small but not entirely irrelevant nit having to do with the 70-plus year old deceased when he was (wait for it!) six - Brisbane quotes a colleague in NYT's research department:
"'It looks like we probably got it wrong, but it is probably impossible to know what is right,' he said. 'It's vexing.'
So [Brisbane concludes] there will be no correction. The Times will not publish one if it cannot determine what is correct."
There it is! No correction, no retraction, none of this setting-the-record straight if we cannot ascertain what is actually right.
That provides cover for everything from the smallest hiccup to the most egregious falsity du jour spun out by today's public officials and candidates. Ultimately, have your researchers check it out but if there is confusion or uncertainty, leave the matter be. Or, if you must ... and have the airtime or the ink, trot out someone on the other side to speak their piece and, well, there's the end of it. On to the next story.
After all ... 14,000 errors a year!