Errors and Omissions

Op-ed details need verification, too

From the Washington Post:

Correction to This Article
The 1989 Supreme Court decision on flag burning was not unanimous, as stated in a June 15 op-ed piece. The case was decided by a 5 to 4 vote.

Here is the first paragraph of the piece, by former Senator Bob Kerrey, about a proposed Constitutional amendment making flag-burning unlawful:

With campaigns at full tilt and the Fourth of July just around the corner, the Senate's new priority is to debate and vote on yet another resolution to amend our remarkable Constitution. This time it's an amendment that would allow Congress to prohibit a form of protest that a large majority of Americans do not like: the burning or desecration of the American flag. Since 1989, when the Supreme Court decided unanimously and correctly that these rare, unpleasant demonstrations are expressions of speech and therefore protected by the First Amendment, there have been many such attempts. Fortunately, all have failed.

There's a big difference in the impact of the sentence if it had read "Since 1989, when a divided Supreme Court decided 5-4, yet correctly, that these rare unpleasant demonstrations are expressions of speech..."

Which means the editors needed to verify that assertion before printing the piece. Op-ed pieces are full of opinion. That's fine. They also, though, need to be correct when citing facts. Otherwise, they're no more persuasive than the rantings of a guy sitting at the bar.

newspapers, media, errors, opinions

posted by Unknown @ 6/16/2006 09:14:00 AM