U.S. News Fact-Checking Blasted at German Conference on Accuracy

The great site RegretTheError.com, which notes newspaper corrections of interest and otherwise monitors accuracy in the print world, offers a great report on an accuracy conference recently held in Germany. Among the notable practices cited were those by the German media weekly Der Spiegel.

“My colleagues from the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker were just as amazed as me to discover the German weekly has roughly 70 full-time people in its fact checking and research department, as well as others who work part-time,” wrote RegretTheError Editor Craig Silverman. “By comparison, the New Yorker has 16 checkers.”

Another in attendance was Scott Maier, associate professor at the University of Oregon, who spoke about the diminished interest at U.S. news outlets in accuracy and correction improvements. His speech is below:

The facts about US newspaper accuracy from Craig Silverman on Vimeo.