Should journos praise themselves for correcting their own mistakes?

Allow me to introduce to your vocabulary the “self-congratulatory correction.” Few things demonstrate so well the excessive self-regard that some in the news media have for themselves and their industry.

You may recall the particulars: A news organization or journalist bungles a story and then issues a correction seemingly designed to make sure everyone knows they are still superior to the targets of their reporting.

Although this was much more of a fad during the first Trump administration, it still happens. People in media treat the mere act of correcting their own mistakes — one of the most basic requirements in any information-based profession — as proof of their own virtue.

MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian really stepped in it last week when he misreported that FBI Director Kash Patel had just landed in Russia. The problem: Patel was not in Russia. He was in Virginia, speaking at a public event.

Dilanian had bad information, and it was too good to check. 

With egg on his face, the MS NOW reporter eventually issued an on-air correction. But rather than let it go at just admitting a mistake, he added the following: “We regret this error, and we are transparent about when we make errors.”

Well, yes — why wouldn’t he be transparent about it? Don’t you owe your readers at least that much? Isn’t that the bare minimum?

This sort of self-congratulation for failure was much more common — and just as insufferable — during Trump’s first term, when the president’s perfidy was often confused for a blanket absolution for journalistic malpractice.

In 2020, then-CNN analyst Chris Cillizza cited the mere existence of editor’s notes and corrections as proof of the media’s supposed superiority, especially when compared to the bad man who says false things.

“The very fact that we issue public corrections — in the most transparent way possible — is a testament to our commitment to getting it right,” Cillizza wrote. “Now, contrast that approach to how President Trump and the White House operate. Trump, according to The Washington Post’s Fact-Checker blog, has said more than 18,000 false or misleading things in his first 1,170 days in office—an average of 15 incorrect claims every single day he has been president.”

Speaking of the Washington Post Fact-Checker, its former chief, Glenn Kessler, wrote an entire post in 2018 simply titled “The news media does apologize for mistakes, unlike the White House.”

That same year, the New York Times issued a minor correction, updating its estimate of a Trump rally from 1,000 to roughly 5,500 attendees. The story’s author, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, eventually tweeted a correction, writing [emphasis added]: “President [Trump] is correct about his crowd last night. My estimate was way off, and we have corrected our story to reflect the fire marshal’s estimate of 5,500 people. When we get it wrong, we say so.”

Why do they keep stressing this final point, as if they deserve a medal for not grossly misleading their readers?

Earlier, in 2017, then-Washington Post commentator Philip Bump warned specifically that the news media were just too darned honest for their own good. Their dedication to correcting the record, he said, was opening them up to unfair attacks.

““Donald Trump was eminently prepared to launch an asymmetric warfare campaign against the institutions of American democracy, nowhere more effectively than against the media,” Bump complained in an article that ran under the syndicated headline “Unlike Trump, media owns its mistakes.” “His career — part salesman, part showman, part hustler — taught him a key lesson that, as it turns out, was as effective against the media as an IED could be against a military caravan: Never admit you’re wrong.”

Remember: during the years these pieces were written, major newsrooms attempted the Herculean task of proving fantasies were reality. They poured an absurd amount of time, effort, manpower, and resources into proving a conspiracy theory alleging that Vladimir Putin had installed Trump as U.S. president, going so far as to award themselves major honors for a story that was ultimately as phony as a three-dollar bill.

Just this month, former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson praised New York Times columnist Nikole Hannah-Jones for questioning her own decision to sabotage her daughter’s education in the name of progressive idealism.

Hannah-Jones wrote recently that maybe it was a mistake to enroll her daughter in an infamously crummy school when she could afford better. In response, Abramson gushed over Jones’s bravery, declaring “‘I was wrong’ are the most powerful words we have.” She then segued (of course) into unfavorable comparisons to Trump, who provided a good education for his children.

As for Hannah-Jones and anyone else in media willing to concede fault, Abramson warns their honesty will be weaponized against them.

“I worry that it makes the paper an even bigger target for President Trump,” Abramson warned. “Trump is utterly incapable of admitting he was ever wrong.” Incredibly, that’s where her mind went — to Trump; not to the tragedy of a bright young girl whose childhood opportunities were sacrificed over a decade on the altar of self-centered virtue-signaling.

Abramson also cheered the relatively recent phenomenon of newsrooms being more willing to admit when they are at fault.

She is right that some major news outlets still drag their feet in this area. This includes ABC News, which ran a false story earlier this month about companies tied to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump — that they had secured more than $6 billion in government contracts.

The story disappeared the same day it was published, with no editor’s note or clarification. After more than 24 hours of nothing, ABC restored a version of the story with a different headline, a different thesis, key claims removed, and the $6 billion figure completely missing. Even the name of the story’s original author disappeared, his byline swapped for the generic “ABC NEWS.” That’s one way of getting around a full retraction.

Our first job is to get it right — so already on that count you have failed when you issue a correction. That admission of error is needed, but it is not grounds for self-praise — rather, it is the lowest possible bar you must clear to salvage your remaining credibility with readers.

To attach your correction to a sense of self-superiority is gross and hubristic and even suggests an alarming lack of contrition. It is positively — if I may say it — Trumpian.

Becket Adams is a journalist and media critic in Washington.