Major media foulups, cont’d: in its Sept. 20 issue, the newsmagazine U.S. News sets forth a lengthy and on the whole abject apology (couched, not at all accurately, as a “Clarification“) regarding a piece it ran in its Aug. 8 issue, “Secrets Behind the Mask“, by Christopher H. Schmitt, which had assailed the 3M company for alleged deficiencies in face masks which left workers unprotected against on-the-job hazards. The Aug. 8 article had consisted of little more than a recitation in sensational language of various claims advanced by plaintiff’s lawyers who’ve been naming 3M as a defendant for years (mostly without success) in asbestos and other workplace-injury litigation. In that respect it resembled a good many media pieces which are less a product of investigative journalism as such than of the “litigation communications” branch of public relations.
The details revealed by U.S. News’s inquiry into its own misreporting are damning indeed. Here’s the first:
U.S. News referred to a test performed by 3M to measure the fit of the 8710 mask, a key element in determining its effectiveness. The article stated that “the results shattered 3M’s claim that one size fits all, as fully a third of the subjects failed to get a good fit,” and that the test yielded erroneous results, “telling workers the mask was fitting properly, when in reality, it wasn’t.” Those conclusions were based on a faulty reading of significant tests of the mask’s fit. The report of the test results in question concluded that “it is possible to get false rejection of good fit, but no false acceptance of poor fit was experienced.” The magazine failed to characterize those results properly.
Egregious, no? And other errors are equally so:
* The magazine stated that 3M “failed to meet government standards” for the mask. The truth, it turns out, is that the mask did meet standards when it was introduced “and maintained its certification by the government the entire time the mask was on the market”.
* The magazine falsely stated that a federal appeals court had determined the mask to be defective. In fact, the court was ruling on a different issue and made no such determination.
* The article quoted four persons criticizing the mask but “neglected to identify those individuals as having served as paid advisers to plaintiffs’ counsel in litigation against 3M.” It also quite falsely implied that industrial hygienists as a group consider the mask responsible for injuries.
There’s much more, including the magazine’s apology for the article’s subhead — “How a promising device designed to protect workers left many fighting for their lives” — as “insupportable and unfair”. In fact, six of seven juries have voted in favor of 3M; the seventh case (see Feb. 23) is on appeal. (Update Jan. 22, 2005: Mississippi high court throws out verdict against 3M in that case.) “Upon review, U.S. News is unaware of any clear evidence of causal connection between any particular person’s injuries and a failure of a 3M mask.”
OK, so the credibility and, in this case, the credulity of a venerable magazine were ruthlessly exploited by sources willing to plant untruths and half-truths as part of a campaign to assail the reputation of one of the nation’s most highly regarded businesses. What I’d like to know is: why shouldn’t U.S. News reveal its sources in this particular instance? Who fed it the misinformation, and did the magazine get the idea of wading into this controversy all by itself, or was it approached? Surely the magazine owes no loyalty to private parties that burned it so badly. So c’mon, U.S. News: tell us who they were. (& welcome Romenesko readers; see Sept. 17)
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