accepting that such errors are a fact of life.

This is fine. Mistakes happen; we're all human. My only observation is that elected officials are held to an entirely different set of standards than journalists. An elected official who makes any public mistake that is more serious than a jaywalking ticket is almost invariably confronted by a bombardment of questions - usually from journalists - that are almost entirely a variant of, "will you resign?"

A journalist who makes a mistake is his or her work is rarely, if ever, held to any kind of direct account, even though journalism is, in my opinion, a position of public trust that is on a par with being an elected official.

...and hiding behind fact checkers and copy editors won't wash. If the journalist is so concerned with having the by-line, that means that the final responsibility needs to rest with him or her.

There's also a bit of self-policing that comes into play here: a journalist who gets the facts wrong regularly won't be trusted by a source to get it right. It's in a journalist's best interest to make sure a source isn't suspicious, and that requires genuine remorse when a mistake is made.

Most of the time the mistake is minor and the source (especially if the source is a politician) lets it go, accepting that such errors are a fact of life. In a few cases, people hold grudges (sometimes unreasonable ones) because of errors.

The newspaper itself, in a wonderful gesture of accountability, gets away with maybe publishing a boilerplate 'correction' in a very small unobtrusive box tucked into one of the lower corners on page A2 or B2, so as not to call attention to itself, with a entirely insufficient "we regret the error."

But what is the ethical and moral obligation of the individual reporter? Do you owe a personal apology to the subject of the story? I'm not saying that reporters don't feel disappointed in themselves if they get something wrong; I'm just asking what specific action they should take when they are confronted with the fact that they wrote a story based on incomplete, incorrect or inaccurate facts.

A mere shrugging the shoulders and moving on, with a promise to oneself to "do better next time" could be construed as entirely and callously insufficient, at least from a certain perspective.

Luc Ferrandez's interview with Patrice Roy on the Téléjournal tonight: http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/telejournal_montreal/2009-2010/Reportage.asp?idDoc=100836&autoPlay=http://www.radio-canada.ca/Medianet/2010/CBFT/TelejournalMontreal201001111800_6.asx

I like candid and plainspoken too, and I'm sure he'll keep it up.

Cheers,

Caroline

We don’t call it «Radio-Cadenas» for nothing.

As an anglo-saxon, you ought to understand the concept of not trusting the government…

Editor: Good morning, Mrs. Billsby. How's the arthritis?

Mrs. Billsby: Fine, thank you. But you folks printed that I died.

Editor: That's impossible. We don't make mistakes on the obituary page, Mrs. Billsby.

Mrs. Billsby: But I'm looking at it right here.

Editor: Okay... Find some good light and read it to me slowly.

Mrs. Billsby: "Billsby slashes four, dies in cocaine brawl"

Editor: That's the front page, Mrs. Billsby.

Please use that information to reframe this story to fit your preconceived narrative.

Journalists are masters of the art of out-of-context quotes and creative editing to make something look not quite like it is really; after all, they have to earn their paycheques.

By past experience with journalists, they cannot be trusted anymore than croporate P.R. flacks. Heck, they are croporate flacks themselves.

It’s funny, haven’t you noticed that journalists seem to be extremely competent in all the subjects they talk about, ecxept those one personally knows very well…

His rant wasn't against the story iteself, which was indeed accurate, but about the fact that the story was critical of his anti-automobile approach to every decision he sends out.

Something tells me His Majesty Herrandez is in for a long, tough ride as an odd-ball mayor who lives in the borough with the highest concentration of news reporters in the city!