National Review is possibly the most popular target for media criticism from liberal bloggers. Part of the reason is surely The Corner, which gives NR writers a chance to let their hair down in an easy to link (and easy to parody) format. Part of it is the strong personalities of the writers; between John Derbyshire, Donald Luskin, Jonah Goldberg, Rich Lowry, and so on, they sometimes seem more like characters than pundits. (The Rich Lowry link, I should mention, hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.)
But part of the reason is surely that they just plain get things wrong with some frequency. Brad DeLong is fond of asking, doesn’t anyone over there even care?
I’m sure that they care. But that isn’t really the right question.
Last year, I was curious about the fact-checking procedures at the major reputable opinion journals, so I started calling around. It’s important that I point out that, even more than usual, I Might Be Wrong. I’ve never spent a day in the offices of any of these magazines, and it could be the case that I just asked the wrong questions, or that I missed an important step, or that every other magazine but the National Review was exaggerating. Having said that, here’s what I found.
The Weekly Standard and the American Prospect employ full-time fact-checkers, while the Nation, the Washington Monthly, and the New Republic have their armies of interns do fact-checking. I never made contact with Reason or Commentary. All of the magazines that I spoke to had similar policies and procedures. Fact-checkers were expected to get as close to original sources as possible. For example, if a piece quoted a speech, the fact-checker was supposed to try to check a transcript of the speech, although they often ended up looking at other reported stories. This is potentially very valuable; one fact-checker told me how he had changed the thrust of a piece by looking up a paper presented to an international conference, and finding that it had been misreported by others in the press. Any original quotes have to be double-checked by calling the source. I had the impression that the New Republic had the most rigorous fact checking process, for obvious reasons, but the rigor of all of the aforementioned magazines were within one standard deviation of each other.
National Review was the stand-out exception. When I called and asked to speak to the person in charge of fact-checking, I was forwarded to John Virtes, who was described to me as the librarian. (His voicemail identified him as the librarian, not the fact-checker. I’ve also seen him described as “research director”; he spends some of his time preparing materials to assist the writers.)
Every other fact-checker that I spoke to stressed the importance of primary sources and always checking quotes. Mr. Virtes said that he uses newspapers and reliable websites, and that he calls people when he needs to. Other fact-checkers told me that small changes to stories were frequently made as a result of fact-checking. Mr. Virtes didn’t say that that was the case. The difference was noticeable.
I don’t want to speak ill of Mr. Virtes, who seemed like quite a nice guy, and who surely works very hard. But he has been tasked with a responsibility that is considered a full-time job by peer magazines. At the National Review… it isn’t. Fact-checking is a third job, in addition to supporting the writers and running the library. National Review is a biweekly magazine with an extremely active website. No one could do it.
So, I’m sure that the editors care whether National Review makes mistakes. The more appropriate question would be, “Do they care enough to spend the resources to try to prevent mistakes?” And the answer is “No”.
Ah, but who will fact-check the asses of the fact-checking asses?
Nice legwork. But does the fact-checking policy apply to their in-house blogs? Does Washington Monthly, for example, require Kevin Drum to submit his stuff to editorial before it’s posted?
People expect less from blogs. Maybe there’s a reason for that.
I didn’t ask about the in-house blogs, but I’d be surprised if any of them are fact-checked. Kevin Drum’s definitely isn’t; he’s said that he’s just been asked to keep on doing what he has been doing. The Corner is definitely not checked.
As far as expecting less from blogs, I don’t think that you’ve been reading Buzz Machine. We’re going to revolutionize journalism. We’re the Segway of the 00’s, but for real this time.
I was going to comment on partisan lines, but the Standard goes against that grain.
Did you check the Spectator? Emmett has a reputation to protect, you know.
Bob,
No, I didn’t. Although, in Blinded by the Right, David Brock says that in his whole time writing for the old Spectator, he was never fact-checked.
To be honest, when it comes to some things Jonah can out-fact-check everybody.
The Weekly Standard and the American Prospect employ full-time fact-checkers
Doesn’t seem to have helped David Brooks, which yet again is a disaster for his pesky wannabe: George Will.
No such Canadian institutions. Quadruple. Quintuple. No…wait…
Excerpts from a cassette tape labeled “For Immediate Destruction. Do NOT [underlined four times] accidentally mail this out with the promotional materials. Kathryn-Jean, THIS MEANS YOU”, which I found in my mailbox today, along with various promotional materials from the National Review:gmt, what are you talking about? Ordinarily that would be a hostile question, but in this case I’m just smacking my lips.
(er, the question to gmt is different from the VVH Corner parody. Sorry ‘bout that.)
I might change your John Derbyshire link.
President Roosevelt waited until after World War II to put in place a commission to investigate what mistakes led to Pearl Harbor.See http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200404081530.asp
It speaks volumes that, while May is way off because Roosevelt issued an order in 1941 establishing a commission to investigate Pearl Harbor, that error is, amazingly, only the second most incorrect “fact” in May’s sentence.
AB
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review