Portland, Maine accuracy form

I had not seen anything like this, but I cannot imagine the Portland Press-Herald is the only paper doing it.

At the bottom of a story, there is a link to click "If you were interviewed for this story," which leads here -- http://www.pressherald.com/readerservices/Accuracy_Form.html?storyID=142219485

 

Utterly ridiculous.

"Mr. Bin Laden, we wrote a story about how you killed 3,000 people on Sept. 11. Did you like the story?"

We write the story to inform our readers, not to make people happy.

 

Because journalists--being among the few mortals that never make mistakes and always act appropriately--could never, ever learn anything from sources or readers?

 

Pretty sure a former paper I worked for did something like this on the sly.

 

If there's a mistake in facts, the source or reader let's the paper know, and they correct it.

This form though, just cries out for people to claim they were misquoted, claim the story wasn't accurate even though the facts were checked or heck, claim the reporter was biased.

Put another way, say a reporter writes about a DUI arrest of someone prominent. They call up the DUI guy, guy says "no comment." Story is printed.

Then the guy fills out the form ranting about the paper. Does that give the form any credibility?

One of the questions on there is did the reporter act professionally. You have many people who would claim a reporter is unprofessional simply by asking the questions. (How dare he ask about my two divorces and my open marriage!)

Not to mention, it wouldn't surprise me if management wanted that form as an excuse so they could dump some more staffers.

 

Ten to one this is the result of an idiotic focus group or newsroom manager who listened to marketing drivel about ways to more robustly engage the valued consumer.

Baron's right.

 

Yes...that's something you would correct or address behind the scenes...this format is ridiculous.

 

The advisors at my college paper would do this occasionally, but that was college and a learning tool. This seems like another opportunity for the usual suspects to emerge from the basement and whine about the libural media again. And to take up limited news space?

 

Nothing wrong with seeking out and collecting that info if its not used improperly.

 

First, there are plenty of problems with coverage one cannot address simply by issuing a correction.

Second, who cares that some people might use the form for unfairly complaining about stories? Those complaints are easily dismissed. The problems are still being "addressed behind the scenes"--it says they're only using this internally--they've just created a process to facilitate feedback. As POI says, not really clear why that's a huge issue.

 

Clearly you haven't worked for a publisher who makes you change your entire coverage policy because of a single complaint ... over and over again.

 

What a lazy way of being a managing editor.