From JIM ROMENESKO'S MEDIA NEWS Ombud: Courant's credibility was hurt with bogus library bugging story (http://www.ctnow.com/news/opinion/columnists/hc-hunter1110.artnov10,0,6354989.column) A Hartford Courant freelance columnist reported last Sunday that his sources said the FBI had bugged Hartford Public Library computers to search for information that might lead to terrorists. Not true, the FBI and library said after the column was published. Courant Editor Brian Toolan tells ombud Karen Hunter: "The anonymity of the sources wasn't the root cause of the problem. The sources' information was wrong. We failed to journalistically challenge their contentions." Hunter writes: "If there had been more discussion about the column, it's possible the unreliability of the information might have been sorted out. Clearly, the folks at the FBI weren't happy about the bad information (http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-fbiolds1107.artnov07.story), and The Courant's credibility took the hit." (Toolan tells (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1758016) E&P: "We screwed up and we're going to fix it.") (Hartford Courant) Other ombud columns: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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