Sunday, February 20, 2011

Reporter does right thing, admits mistake

Good work today by Winnipeg Sun courts reporter Dean Pritchard.

He adds a correction to his recap of the city’s best-read story that is not about Lady Gaga – the trial and conviction of Mark Grant for the 1984 murder of Candace Derksen.

On a different note, I have to confess a mea culpa. In an earlier story I wrote that Mark Grant slumped his head on a table and weeped following a marathon interrogation with police.

Gobsmacked prosecutors later told me Grant shed no tears.

“Sleeping maybe, not weeping,” Crown attorney Brian Bell said.

Reporters don’t like admitting their mistakes but I thought I should set the record straight.


Pritchard gets it right. Admitting a mistake in a timely manner is important to maintaining a journalist’s credibility – his or her brand and, in this case, the brand of his employer.

If only politicians who lie to Parliament felt the same way.

Dean Pritchard’s brand is much stronger today than, oh, how about Bev Oda’s?