Happy anniversary St. Petersburg Times' flub!

The St. Petersburg Times' double-barreled mistake in reporting Charlie Crist's share of public campaign financing dollars has (nearly) reached its one-year anniversary!

Hip-hip-HURRAH!  Hip-hip-HURRAH!!

Sometimes I didn't think the blunder would last this long.  After all, I informed the Times of its error back on June 14 of last year:

Dear corrections department,

The recent editorial referenced in the subject line appears to contain an error:

It is the system that also enabled then-Republican Charlie Crist to get more than $7.4 million in public matching money for smaller contributions for his successful campaign for governor in 2006.

In 2006, four gubernatorial candidates received a total of about $7.4 million in public money. Crist received about $3.3 million of that $7.4 million.

The editorial apparently used the numbers from a recent news report in the Times.  I would hypothesize that the writer of that story confused the total amount given to candidates for governor with the amount going directly to Crist.

After finding the same error in a story by Steve Bousquet, I followed up with an email to him on June 21:

Dear Steve Bousquet,

There's an inaccuracy in your story from June 5, 2010.  I contacted the corrections department but either they're swamped or don't care or something.  In any case I get no response and the error persists with no apparent interest in correcting it.

The error was in your reporting of Charlie Crist's share of public campaign finance money.  You reported it as over $7.4 million.  That figure is over twice what Crist received (about $3.3 million), representing as it does the total amount received by all gubernatorial candidates in 2006.

It's very easy to see the proportions at this .dos site:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/campaign-finance/matching-funds2006.shtml

I apologize for contacting you directly about this.  I simply find it appalling that the Times is so slow to correct the record, assuming there is any interest at all in doing so, and I reasoned that the author of a story may have the greatest interest in the story's accuracy.  If you agree there is a problem perhaps something will be done about it.

Anybody can make a mistake.  But when calls to correct an error go unheeded it strikes me that something's wrong.

Bousquet replied promptly and acknowledged the problem.  And then ... nothing.

On July 15 I sent another message to Bousquet:

Dear Steve Bousquet,

I have periodically checked the online versions of the two stories that carried the erroneous $7.4 million figure (Crist's supposed share of public funding in 2004 (sic)).  The error remains in both online versions.

To your knowledge, has the Times published any correction notice?  On a related note, is the publication of a correction much good if the online versions are never fixed?

And then ... nothing.

Though it gets tiresome pointing out mistakes when the entity publishing the mistakes shows little interest in fixing them, I recently decided (June 7) to make one last attempt to get action on the public financing error with an email to Paul Tash, the Times' president:

Dear Mr. Tash,

Some time ago, I found two instances of an inaccurate claim in the Times (one in an editorial, the other in an item by Steve Bousquet).

I contacted the corrections department.  Nothing happened.

Some time later, I contacted Steve Bousquet directly.  Based on the evidence I presented, Bousquet appeared to allow that an error had occurred.  He wrote that he would take it up with an editor to determine whether some type of correction was in order.  Nothing happened.

Here is the nature of the problem:  The Times has reported and reiterated (in the editorial) that Charlie Crist received $7.4 million in public campaign money.  That $7.4 million figure, according to the state's website, reflects the total public campaign money received by all of Florida's gubernatorial candidates combined.

Please be advised that I publish my criticisms of the Times and any reply from you not accompanied by an "off the record" stipulation or the like may be published.

My reader(s) may well be interested in the reasons why an apparently obvious error brought to the paper's attention results in no corrective action.  I can imagine a number of plausible reasons but I've yet to hear one from the Times.

Happy anniversary, erroneous $7.4 million figure!

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/campaign-finance/matching-funds2006.shtml

Oddly enough, PolitiFact ignored my request that this claim receive a fact check.