Thursday April 14, 2005

UPDATE: Toothing Corrections?

While I’m not much of a hand-wringer when it comes to the state of journalism—I figure if you deliver reliable information, people will continue to read, and if you don’t, they won’t—I am surprised how few of the outlets that fell for last year’s toothing hoax have gone back to correct their mistake.

Wired News gets the gold star here. The site posted a header on its story, and another item on the frontpage, almost immediately, admitting it had been duped. (Guess that’s what National Magazine Award-winners are made of.) Tech site The Register also followed up quickly, although it recalled its earlier skepticism, which was aimed more at whether or not toothing would work, not at whether or not it even existed. Reuters, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to have issued a follow-up, and the BBC’s story remains untouched. Even The Independent, whose writer admits on his own blog he was fooled, hasn’t issued any correction I can find. The New York Post? Please.

There have been a few mainstream articles about the hoax. Washington Post columnist Robert MacMillan issued a half-hearted mea culpa for circulating the legend, but says “it’s worth remaining skeptical,” since he can’t seem to find the names of the hoaxsters anywhere. Guess you shouldn’t do any more reporting on being duped than it took you to get duped in the first place. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, meanwhile, says that toothing still sounds like a good idea.

The best follow-up comes from columnist Fergus Cassidy, writing in Ireland’s Sunday Tribune. He writes:

As this prank only ended last week, it’ll be interesting to see how that apology is met. Already disclaimers are appearing on some websites which ran the ‘toothing’ story last year. Some have run the hoax revelation but others have pulled the original articles and made like it never happened. Amnesia is a handy bolt hole on the web, but ineffectual for print.

Extraction may be painful but the discomfort should rightly be shared by those who linked to, commented on or helped prolong the ‘toothing’ decay.

Anything I’m missing? If you’ve come across any toothing corrections, let me know.