Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Queerty's Chris Bull
Covers Up Milk Plaque Errors

Remember I blogged on Friday about Queerty getting a lot of facts wrong about the plaque honoring Harvey Milk stolen from the entrance to the underground transit hub named for him, in the Castro? This was the URL for Queerty's error-riddled post: http://www.queerty.com/somebody-stole-the-harvey-milk-plaque-from-the-castro-real-classy-20111021/. It's been covered up through deletion.

This is the screen grab I made of the mistakes, just in case Queerty removed the post or changed it without telling readers:


Well, late yesterday a very revised story and new URL, without any note from the writer or editor, was posted and all the above info was gone. The comments pointing out the mistakes and original story getting deleted and links to accurate stories about the purloined plaque in the Bay Area Reporter and SF Chronicle remained up:

You have some of the facts wrong ... Does Queerty has a basic “no-fact check” policy? ... Why was the story removed?

No response was shared by Queerty, so I sent an email to Chris Bull, who once wrote for the Advocate and is listed on the Gay Cities site, the parent company of Queerty, as their editorial director. I asked why they couldn't simply admit mistakes were made in their story. Bull opted not to reply.

If accuracy and facts mean a damn thing to Bull and the teams at Gay Cities and Queerty, they can show their commitment to those ideals by acknowledging their errors.

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