[Norm Lenhart]

As a former reporter I notice the 5Ws of Journalism are again, as always, absent from the Picture.

WHO told you he was from Kenya to begin with?
WHAT is your process for fact checking things you publish?
WHERE did the information that led you to publish his Kenyan birthplace come from?
WHEN were you informed of such?
WHY do you believe now that this was an error and can you produce any prior retraction?

Can ANY actual journalist currently working in the media please step up and ask these questions?

Lets see.

[hedgetrimmer]

There is a difference between a ‘journalist’ and a reporter.

Big difference.

News agencies don’t have reporters because they report. Journalists however say what they think or are told to think. Now that Warren Buffett friend of Obama owns 63 newspapers, guess what the journalists are going to say?

[webheart]

“Why” is not part of journalism. Who, what, when,where, how. Objective. Example: Colonel Mustard (who) whacked (what) Mrs. Mustard ove(who) over the head (what) with a chair leg (what) yesterday evening (when) in their den (where)causing her to die (what). The How is implied, but the why cannot be objectively known. Maybe she was cheating on him, maybe she caught him cheating. If you want the why, present the facts and let the reader decide.

[aruanan]

WHO told you he was from Kenya to begin with?
WHAT is your process for fact checking things you publish?
WHERE did the information that led you to publish his Kenyan birthplace come from?
WHEN were you informed of such?
WHY do you believe now that this was an error and can you produce any prior retraction?

Perhaps you've since seen that that literary agent didn't write the bios. She had the writers supply their own bios written in the third person. Those went in as they were supplied. She did no fact checking. She received the bio from the hand of Barry--unless she took delivery of the finished mss and bio directly from Ayers.

[hummingbird]

Yes, the 5 w’s are basic journalism.

There is also a “h”.

How...so many “hows” to consider.