Vox Writer Manages To Cram Four Errors In One Paragraph

Vox founder Max Fisher managed to cram no less than four errors into a single paragraph, perhaps a new record for the correction-prone and self-professed “wonkblog.” (RELATED: Vox Blogger: Charlie Hebdo Shooting Has Nothing To Do With ‘Cartoons Or Religion’)

Here’s a screencap of the original paragraph, from a story on investigative reporter Seymour Hersh:

“A decade ago, Hersh was one of the most respected investigative journalists on the planet, having broken major stories from the 1969 My Lai massacre to the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal. But more recently, his reports have become less and less credible. He’s claimed that much of the US special forces is controlled by secret members of Opus Dei, that the US military flew Iranian terrorists to Nevada for training, and that the 2014 chemical weapons attack in Syria was a “false flag” staged by the government of Turkey…”

All three dates in that paragraph are incorrect:

• The My Lai Massacre occurred in 1968, not 1969.
• The abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred in 2003, not 2004.
• The Syrian chemical weapons attack(s) occurred in 2013, not 2014.

It’s also incorrect to claim Seymour Hersh “broke” the Abu Ghraib story. Hersh did publish a groundbreaking story on the scandal in May 2004, but the story really began receiving widespread media attention after a segment on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in April 2004. Furthermore, the story itself was broken in a little-noticed Associated Press story back in November 2003.

Vox eventually updated and corrected the piece: “Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article at one point referenced the My Lai massacre and Ghouta chemical weapons attack as occurring in 1969 and 2014, respectively, when in fact those were the years when Hersh’s stories on the incidents were published,” the correction reads. However, the story as currently written still claims Hersh broke the Abu Graib abuse scandal. (RELATED: Liberal Vox Blogger Caught In Embarrassing Reversal)

[h/t David Johnson]

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