Times Standards Editor Revists Sourcing in the Wake of Margaret Seltzer

Yesterday, The New York Times asked what the publishing industry—and the paper itself—could have done to have fact-checked a fradulent story produced by Margaret Seltzer that made its way into a book, and to the pages of the paper itself in a profile.

The freelance reporter who penned the profile in The Times, Mimi Reed, said, “The way I look at it is that it’s just like when you get in a car and drive to the store—you assume that the other drivers on the road aren’t psychopaths on a suicide mission."

Tom de Kay, the editor of the House & Home section, where the profile was printed, said, "I was to some degree trusting that the vetting process of a reputable book publisher was going to catch this level of duplicity."

Today, standards editor Craig Whitney writes in an internal memo that none of that was enough. Here's the memo:

Single-source profiles of people who are not already well known quantities are traps we have fallen into twice in the past year or two, and that's too often. Until publishers start fact-checking their own nonfiction books, and that'll be the day, we should remember that profiles of unknown authors
should always include reporting from other sources -- not just surrogates of the profilee like agents, publishers, lawyers, etc. -- to verifiy the most important facts.  But even when there's no book involved, the same rule applies. If we can't find ways to check key facts, names, graduation
claims, etc., we should hold the story until we can verify them, and if we can't, we should be suspicious.  Live and learn....
Craig