Accuracy, speed and corrections

Social media lit up a bit this week when Howard Kurtz from the Washington Post included a line in a column, referring to Kenya as President Obama's "native country."
As you probably already know, some fringe folks known as the "birthers" question the legitimacy of the Obama presidency, claiming he was not born in the U.S. and thus is constitutionally barred from serving as president. When a reader pointed it out, Kurtz immediately said it was a slip and he meant, "ancestral homeland."
The Post has now appended a correction but many questioned how long it took them to do that (about three days, by my count).
What are organizations' responsibilities when it comes to accuracy? How fast should they correct errors? How does the social media sphere both exacerbate errors (such as the birthers linking to the story) and ferret them out (such as the reader who noted the problem)?

Is "jackass" presidential?

So Kanye pulled a little something at the VMAs that I know you've all heard about.
But it turned into a media ethics question when President Obama and a pool of reporters got involved.
Here's a roundup story of what happened.
Here's the actual audio.
Here's Moran's tweet.
So what's the upshot here? Was it ethical for Moran to tweet this? Can the president ever expect to be off the record? Is "jackass" a term not in keeping with the civility required of the office? We just pummeled a congressman for saying, "You lie." What about "jackass"? Or was this an accurate and precise description worthy of circulation? Does the venue matter?
(Incidentally, this is a pretty funny parody linking the two.)

Ads and Accuracy

The two presidential campaigns got into multiple kerfuffles last fall over the accuracy of campaign advertising. It's a pretty common development.
Here's just one example.
But now that we have the benefit of time and distance, did it matter? In what ways does campaign advertising sway the electorate? Should we expect it to be "accurate"? How is that accuracy determined in the arena of politics? Isn't one man's misinterpretation another man's firm conviction? Are these ethics questions only or should we think about legal ramifications?

Obama tours the Post

Here's an illuminating inside look at what happens when a popular new president checks out the newsroom in his new hometown.
What is the difference between news and celebrity coverage and how might that affect this administration? What does it mean that people are "star struck" by Obama? How can reporters overcome this in themselves? Is that feasible? Why might people be concerned about personal relationships between reporters and the people they cover?

White House Site

With the transition of power in Washington came a digital transition, as well. Check out one evaluation of the new Obama Administration White House Web site.
Have you been to it? What do you think? Will you go back?

New administration meets the press

It seems like the claims that the news media adore Barack Obama may be on the wane. Lots of concern and complaints about access.
What obligation does a presidential administration have to give reporters access? How does Obama's affinity for alternative information channels affect the traditional news media (e.g., bypassing the press during the campaign and making announcements directly to voters via Web sites, blogs and texts)?

BBC edits Obama video

Ethicists are raising questions about a BBC decision to edit together separate parts of President Obama's inauguration address.
What does this choice do to the BBC's credibility? How would the audience know about this editing? Does it matter?

Super Bowl Ads

So we didn't have much time to chat yesterday about the advertising bonanza that is the Super Bowl. Which ads did you like? Which did you hate? Which do you think have the greatest effect? And what about the Richard Simmons spot ... was it insensitive?
More on ads. It's Super Tuesday. What are you reading about candidates' ads? I'm getting a lot of that kind of traffic on Facebook, especially notes about this piece in support of Obama. Curious how this is playing with your generation.