Three days ago, WFMY regurgitated an error from a Greensboro Police Department (GPD) press release, erroneously reporting that homicides in the city rose by 32%. The actual increase was 47% as this blogger noted could have been ascertained if WFMY had just checked the GPD's pronouncements against the data included with the press release.
Despite the error being brought to public attention, WFMY waited until the GPD issued another press release today correcting the error before they regurgitated the correction.*
Publishing press releases independent of any fact checking is stenography, not reporting. Failing to correct errors until prodded by a press release is being a puppet.
* The crime statistic error remains uncorrected in WFMY's original story as does another error about the amount of window tinting legally allowable on cars in North Carolina, also transcribed from an erroneous GPD press release.
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