We Regret the Error, Claire Theobald

Pulitzers Don't Go to Pansies

Humans are giant failures. There, I said it. Revel in it. Enjoy it. Let it dance on your palette and enjoy the taste. People are to perfection as quadriplegics are to marathons. You want to know what the funny part is? Not only is humanity fatally flawed, but one of our greatest flaws is the fact that we invariably waste our time chasing our tails trying to achieve perfection despite our predisposition to getting things wrong. Some of these ridiculous people call themselves “Journalists”, and make careers out of maintaining flawless accuracy. What is almost worse is the idea that the rest of the population looks at these so-called Journalists and berates them whenever the well meaning Journalist makes a mistake, and choose to question their integrity whenever said mistake makes it to print. Weird, right?

Just recently, the CBC news printed a story about a principal accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student, aptly named Principal admits professional misconduct in relationship with a student", where they listed a series of quotes made by a representative of the Alberta Teachers Association as being made by Dennis Theoboldt. Unfortunately for the reporter, his name is Dennis Theobald (I should know, the man is my father). This error could have been easily avoided had the person either asked during the interview, or even consulted their favorite internet search engine, as the ATA is not terribly secretive.

The Daily Observer published a public retraction for statements made that, as it turns out, were completely baseless. Apparently on January 21, 2010 the Daily Observer published a story claiming that Crown Lawyers involved in the prosecution of Gulick Forest engaged in criminal conduct and other “serious wrongdoing”. They admitted openly that these allegations were made without evidence, and that they also failed to contact those accused of such acts before publishing.

The prestigious Macleans.ca published an official retraction after a story called “Finns Still Haunted by Lenin’s Ghost” where they admitted that an earlier story ran where the estimated number of Finns who were killed under Lenin in the 1917 war was 10 million. After some research, MacLean’s admitted that the actual number turned out to be 37,000. Still a shocking number, but not nearly as outlandish as 10 million, especially as (according to Wikipedia) the entire population of Finland was only around 3 million people.

The fact is, Journalists are people too, forged of flesh and blood and branded with the same traits as the rest of the general population. It is when we forget that our news is generated by fellow human beings rather than news-robots that we as a society get carried away. Journalists have been conditioned to fear making mistakes, so much so that the weak of heart may be consumed by it. This is not the proper approach. A journalist must be willing to accept that they are human, and therefore are bound to make mistakes; the only way to improve as writers and human beings is to accept these limitations but strive to achieve the best we possibly can. It is said that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and no matter how hard the Journalist works to check facts and follow up on details, some mistakes are bound to slip through the cracks. An artist afraid of spoiling a canvas will never be able to paint a masterpiece, and a journalist afraid of printing a mistake will never be free to write stirring or compelling articles.

*note: picture taken from here, enjoy it (taken from thevoiceofreason.com, no creater cited)*