The Federalist fact-checks Derecka Purnell's playground "shooting"

Not a great response. The Federalist fact-check wasn't air-tight, but the difference between cop and security guard is signfiicant and the author looks bad for needing to correct.

 

I'm 50/50 on it.

Serious correction, but hardly the "it does not appear to have ever happened" death blow The Federalist intended.

Be interesting to see if more comes of it.

 

I don’t know, you accuse a cop of shooting a child and it turns out it was a rent-a-cop that’s a massive distinction.

Some people of influence decided “defund the police” was a realistic goal after hearing this story. Would they have had the same change of mind if the shooter wasn’t a cop?

Defund the Securitas doesn’t carry the same weight

 

If private security is abolished, and public security is abolished, then we’re at...no security at all short of John Wickian vigilantes, or something.

The essay fundamentally changed because abolishing all security is abject nonsense that no one peddling.

 

Was probably Paul Blart.

 

The Federalist printed a follow up:

Atlantic Finally Admits Police Abolition Piece Is Based On A False Narrative

***

The Atlantic still refuses to share any corroborating evidence or if they did a fact-check on the original story before publication, although a search of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s archives encompassing the now-broadened timeline reveals an early-2004 shooting at Buder Recreation Center, less than three blocks from Purnell’s old address.

That article, published March 9, 2004, is titled “Security Guard Is Charged With Assault,” and reports that, “The security guard, 23, and his cousin, 18, were quarreling at the center about 4:50 p.m. [March 8] when the shooting occurred, according to Richard Wilkes, a Police Department spokesman. The victim was shot in the arm.”

“Wilkes,” the 2004 article concludes, “said there were no other injuries and no children were involved in the incident.”

When asked if The Atlantic spoke to the victim, spoke to the guard, or acquired a police report, Anna Bross, a vice president of communications at the magazine, replied, “To start, you can find coverage of the incident in local newspapers in 2004.”

***

It’s kind of remarkable The Atlantic can slough this off. A 23-year-old rent a cop getting an argument with his 18 year old cousin and shooting him in the arm in 2004 was used as a launching off point for a fake anecdote about a cop shooting a kid in 2003.

 

Is it bad enough that Atlantic should take the story down?

Also still curious, does The Federalist routinely fact check other publications?

 

Is it?

 

I don't think they should take it down. They should leave it up there for journalism schools to dissect whenever they want to teach their students about How Not To Do It.

 

I don't know.

If I were running things over there I feel like I'd have three options.

1) Retract it; investigate the origin of the misstatements; publish the results of that investigation.

2) Correct the misstatements, as was done, but append a much longer, more detailed account of your reasons to stand behind the piece.

3) Update the misstatements, then just brazen it out.

The editors over there have chosen #3. Not sure why.

I'd lean toward #2 at first, because it seems easier.

But the only way out is #1.

So, retract it. Then figure out how it happened.

 

Probably because they believe the SJWs on the Twitterverse would come down on them if they did anything else ...