I learned this morning that in a previous post I had incorrectly identified Andrew Breitbart as a “Fox News blogger.” I was in a cafe having breakfast with my children when I discovered this, so I was not able to revise the post, but I did immediately post a comment with a correction and an apology.

Why am I devoting an entire post to pointing out a fact error? I think there’s something to be learned here. So often, publications (online and offline) issue retractions and corrections that are far less prominent than the original “offense.” This is out of embarrassment, and in hopes that the correction will satisfy whomever was wronged or offended, without damaging the reputation of the publication. For this reason, and because I am proud of my integrity, my record and my reputation, I wanted to make my correction as prominent as my original post.

This is the era of realtime communications. My kids often remind me that no electronic devices are allowed at the table when we are having a meal, a rule I hold them to in regards to iPods, Game Boys, etc. But that was before I got my iPhone. (Stay with me here, there’s a point to this.) And it goes beyond my obsession with Foursquare check-ins. So while we were waiting for breakfast to come, I checked my email and saw there were two comments correcting me on Andrew Breitbart’s affiliation. I really hated that my mistake was hanging out there for all to see, and I was unable to fix it. (Maybe I was better off not knowing about it at breakfast.)

The mistake also bothered me because I was taught that fact errors are cataclysmic in proportion. I had a journalism professor who gave an automatic F to anyone who had a fact error on a paper. Once, he deliberately “fed” the class a misspelled name so we would use it on an assignment and he could then flunk us all and make his point. Something told me the name was spelled wrong, so I omitted it from my paper. I got a C-. The rest of the class got F’s. This is how I was educated on the importance of getting it right.

One of the comments on my Breitbart post was of the  “thought you should know” variety. The other was fairly foaming at the mouth, suggesting “Don’t continually propate [sic] LIES or you become what you decry.” I made a mistake. I admit and regret that. There are no mitigating circumstances. I did a sloppy job researching the Breitbart’s affiliation and the chronology of events in the Sherrod situation.

To classify my mistake as a lie is a stretch. It was an error, as grievous as you wish it to be, but not deliberate. It is not in the same class as the malicious and deliberately deceptive work done by Mr. Breitbart. I have quickly corrected the mistake, and fully owned up to having made it, something Breitbart and company have not been quick to do.

Finally, it is interesting to note that others have confused or conjoined Breitbart with Fox News. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) Friday night, told MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow:

“There are these fabricated things that the Fox Newses and the Breitbarts of the world generate just about every week. They got attention with one this week because it was so outrageous. But it goes on just about every single week.”

Tags: sherrod, breitbart, citizen journalism, fox news