This week the New York Times ran an 'Editors Note' correcting a Jan. 28 story about a support group for women having a tough time dating Wall Street bankers in a recession. The headline read, "It's the Economy, Girlfriend."

Only it turns out the support group didn't exist.

The site that earned the Times' attention is Dating a Banker Anonymous (DABA), and spells out tongue-in-cheek the financial pitfalls of women dating bankers during hard times. Interest in DABA went wild across the Internet -- much of it either incredulous or dismissive of the women who came across as whiners upset that they'd lost their Sugar Daddies. Quickly there was talk of a book or movie deal.

NPR blogger Linda Holmes spotted a fraud immediately. Holmes wrote a posting on her Monkey See blog expressing surprise that readers couldn't see how many things in the Times' piece didn't add up.

For one thing, Holmes (a former attorney) noticed that DABA was registered on Jan. 16 but had postings as far back as September 2008. She also found it odd that the Times said there were 30 women in the support group -- but there were no comments on the blog.

After Holmes and others challenged the veracity of the Times' piece, Newsweek met with the DABA women and got a confession.

"There is no real support community, no regular meetings and the blog is written by (Laney) Crowell and her lawyer sidekick Megan Petrus, who concoct entries out of a mixture of their own experiences, stories of people who email the site, and anecdotes of girls they meet socially," wrote Tony Dokoupil of Newsweek.

So I asked Holmes what can be learned from this.

"Skepticism is still really valuable," she said in an email. "Everybody who writes or edits stories about the Internet should know how blogs work and what online communities look like. The fact that a trend piece is controversy-baiting and gets attention but isn't genuinely newsworthy doesn't mean it won't be newsworthy if it turns out to be false."

It's yet another lesson to remind everyone not to be fooled into thinking that what happens online can't be traced.

"To be frank, I think what would have served everyone really well here would have been an actual organic pride in the veracity of what you're publishing," said Holmes. "I think that would have helped the Times identify this problem during editing. I think it would have helped them respond MUCH better the first time, and I think it would have helped them write a much better "Editor's Note" now.

"This was not a hard scam to identify. Our original blog post didn't constitute a full-blown investigation; just a basic application of Internet literacy and skepticism.

"I honestly don't care about the women who write the blog; what particular brand of opportunists they are is not really of any interest to me. But the way this story managed to get into the New York Times continues to bother me, as does their failure to fully acknowledge that the entire thrust of their story was fundamentally false -- not "wrong choice of words; we should have said 'satire' instead of 'support group,'" but actually false.

"And perhaps, though now I am sort of waxing philosophical, one of the most important lessons is that if you're trying to write about something as serious and important as the recession and how it affects real people, you don't give that much prominent space in the paper to a story that comes down to "You know what always gets people talking? Really, really hateful women.'"

New York Times Editors' Note: February 25, 2009
An article on Jan. 28 about women who commiserated over dating Wall Street bankers caught in the financial crisis described a group they had formed, Dating a Banker Anonymous, as a support group. That is the name of their blog. Its creators originally told The Times that about 30 women had participated, but since publication, they have said that all involved were friends. Laney Crowell, one of the women who started the blog, said in the article that it was "very tongue in cheek;" she has since described it as a satire that embellishes true experiences for effect. Had the nature of the blog been made clear at the outset, the article would have described it accordingly, not as a support group.

Today's Post includes 2 listener queries:

Tor Pinney of Green Cove Springs, FL writes:
"I used to listen to NPR for hours every day. Now I rarely turn it on, and when I do I pointedly shut off the hourly news headlines and avoid many of the current events programs I used to enjoy. I am not alone in this growing aversion to your programming. On the contrary, I find quite a few of my acquaintances are doing the same thing, and for the same reason. That is, because we're sick and tired of bad news. It's that simple. NPR has become so overwhelmingly negative that we just can't take it anymore.

I know, I know, you're "just reporting what's happening." I don't mean you should ignore these sad facts or gloss them over, but please, please balance them with equal time for good, happy, uplifting news. Those stories are all around you if you'll just look."

Dear Tor:
You raise a valid concern and one that editors at every news organization struggle with every day. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad economic news right now. NPR isn't covering this any differently than, say, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times or the TV networks. I presented your concerns to NPR's business editor, Les Cook, and this is what he said:

"I don't think we are going out of our way to be negative. We did a story Wednesday about a car dealer in Wisconsin who is hiring 55 people. We are interested in those stories that are counter-intuitive. But this is the worst recession in decades. The Federal Reserve just revised its forecast. They now think unemployment will hit 9 percent by the end of the year. Their previous forecast had things getting better in the second half of the year. We are just trying to keep people informed about what's going on today and how serious this economic decline really is."

Cook did point to NPR's series: On the Road in Troubled Times. NPR's David Greene is spending the first 100 days of the Obama administration driving around the country telling the stories of how Americans are dealing with tough economic times. His pieces often show how resilient Americans are. Take a listen. Right now Greene's in Florida but he welcomes ideas on where to go next.

****

It's that special time of the year that tends to annoy some listeners: pledge drives.

A public librarian wrote in asking why all the public broadcasting stations hold pledge drives at the same time of the year. "Is it tied to payment of fees to continue as a member station in the following fiscal year?" asked Chris Brown.

First of all, membership campaigns are an essential part of supporting a station's budget. Research shows that it is the most cost-effective way of reaching first-time and potential donors.

But no, the timing of fund drives is not directly tied to the billing cycle for NPR program fees. Back when NPR began in 1971, pledge drives were scheduled on an individual station's need to replenish income.

Eventually, national coordinated fundraising weeks were established after a survey in the 1980s discovered that most, but not all, stations held their membership drives in April and their fall drives in October.

But they all don't fundraise on the same week. Milwaukee Public Radio does a mailing in the fall and asks listeners periodically to donate online but doesn't do a fall on-air pledge drive. They just finished their on-air winter drive.

"Stations in colder regions of the country sometimes prefer to fundraise in early November -- after the time change and before 'snowbirds' have gone south -- when listeners have begun to think about the holidays and year-end charitable giving," said Barbara Appleby, NPR's Director, New Revenue Strategies.

It's unlikely you will hear a pledge drive during religious holidays, Election Day, the Olympics and even the World Series.

Juan Williams.

NPR has more than 400 reporters, editors, producers and analysts on its news team, and none is more of a lightning rod than Juan Williams. But it's usually not for anything he says on NPR.

Williams joined NPR in 2000, first as host of Talk of the Nation, then morphing into a senior correspondent. Last spring, NPR's management put him on contract with the title "news analyst" largely to give him more latitude about what he says. He's now paid to give his opinion, and with three decades in the news business, it is often a valuable take on today's politics.

Williams is controversial among NPR listeners because of his long-standing contract with Fox News, which he had before he joined NPR. Currently, he appears on Fox sometimes with Bill O'Reilly and on Sunday morning with Chris Wallace.

On TV, Fox identifies Williams as "NPR News Political Analyst." (Conversely, NPR rarely identifies him as Fox News contributor.)

Last year, 378 listeners emailed me complaints and frustrations about things Williams said on Fox. The listener themes are similar: Williams "dishonors NPR." He's an "embarrassment to NPR." "NPR should sever their relationship with him."

The latest flap involves Williams' comment on Fox about First Lady Michelle Obama. To date, I've received 56 angry emails. For comparison, this year so far, listeners sent 13 emails about Steve Inskeep, 8 about Mara Liasson and 6 about Cokie Roberts -- other NPR personalities who I often get emails about.

Here's what Williams said on Jan. 26, but the transcript doesn't convey the same impact as the video, posted on YouTube. Williams is explaining that Vice President Joe Biden could be a liability for President Obama. But so could his wife.

"Michelle Obama, you know, she's got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going," said Williams. "If she starts talking, as Mary Katharine [Ham, a conservative blogger] is suggesting, her instinct is to start with this blame America, you know, I'm the victim. If that stuff starts coming out, people will go bananas and she'll go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross."

O'Reilly responded: "She's not going to do that."

When I asked Williams about his comments, he initially called it a "faux controversy."

But then he reviewed the tape and realized that "the tone and tenor of my comments may have spurred a strong reaction to what I considered to be pure political analysis of the First Lady's use of her White House pulpit," said Williams via email. "I regret that in the fast-paced, argumentative format my tone and tenor seems to have led people to see me as attacking instead of explaining my informed point of view."

When Williams was speaking of Mrs. Obama as a potential liability, he told me, he was referencing pieces in The Atlantic and Politico. A Politico article listed Mrs. Obama as one "Dem" her husband should watch out for. "She's glamorous, she's on message, she's the nation's favorite mom -- and now she has nowhere to go but down," said the article.

But anyone watching the O'Reilly segment wouldn't know Williams was talking about those two articles. He never mentioned them. Those who wrote me felt Williams was attacking the First Lady.

"I am concerned about the objectivity Juan Williams brings to his news analysis," wrote Alison Fowler. "He has made statements on Fox News regarding Michelle Obama that appear to paint her as an angry Black Nationalist without any basis in fact. Despite the fact that these statements were not made on NPR, they undermine his credibility as an impartial news analyst on your network."

Williams also appears regularly as a news analyst on NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, and on Morning Edition and Day to Day.

"We don't monitor what Juan says on Fox -- or for that matter, his books or other appearances," said Simon by email. "Juan is one of the foremost chroniclers of the history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and African-American life...I think the world of Juan, and he is on our show because the analysis that he offers is insightful, reasoned, fair-minded and interesting."

But after watching the Fox segment, Simon said, "What can I say? That's not the Juan Williams who is on our show."

That may be the cause of the criticism. Williams tends to speak one way on NPR and another on Fox.

His "Stokely Carmichael" comment got the attention of NPR's top managers. They are in a bind because Williams is no longer a staff employee but an independent contractor. As a contract news analyst, NPR doesn't exercise control over what Williams says outside of NPR.

"Juan Williams is a contributor to NPR programs as a news analyst," said Ron Elving, NPR's Washington editor. "What he says on NPR is the product of a journalistic process that includes editors. What he says when he is not on our air is not within our control. But we recognize that what he says elsewhere reflects on NPR, and we have discussed that fact with him specifically in regard to his remarks on Fox News regarding Michelle Obama."

This recent comment may have undermined his credibility with some NPR listeners. But I question whether listeners, overall, object to what Williams says outside of NPR or the fact that he says it on Fox.

NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg appears on the Washington, D.C., ABC affiliate, WJLA-TV. Rarely do I get email criticizing her TV appearances. But in 2008, there were a healthy number of emails attacking political correspondent Mara Liasson for her regular appearances on Fox News.

So why does Williams receive so much criticism? And is it fair?

"There's something about me as a voice with more latitude than a daily news reporter that may bother people," Williams told me. "Maybe it's that people have trouble with the fact that I cross political lines regularly. I try to be curious, to ask questions and to get answers. And I tell you what I see as I see it."

It appears people don't understand that he has two different roles. On NPR, he's expected to provide well-thought out commentary, based on his reporting, about today's politics. On Fox, the pace is faster, and spontaneity and expressing strong opinions are valued.

"I would say the same thing on NPR but we don't have a show with a fast-paced, Cross-Fire format," said Williams. "What I said about Michelle Obama is not out of the realm of main-stream political discourse. It's there in The Atlantic and in The Politico. The point is that NPR has a much more deliberative, slow-paced form with more time to explain what you meant."

Williams is an experienced, multi-talented journalist plugged into the political world. He is also author of a critically acclaimed biography of Justice Thurgood Marshall. He spent 21 years at the Washington Post as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist and White House reporter. According to NPR's Communications office, he is one of NPR's most-sought after public speakers.

Williams brings a valuable viewpoint to NPR. Sometimes it is that of an African-American, but it is also that of someone with a long track record of covering politics. Some think he is a conservative because he's on Fox. Others think Fox uses him as a liberal voice because, whether true or not, a perception exists that NPR is liberal.

The assets that make Williams valuable to NPR are his knowledge, his perspective and that he is rarely predictable.

But in the end, NPR must decide -- as it apparently already has -- whether giving its listeners the benefit of Williams' voice is worth the cost of annoying some listeners for his work on Fox.

As a result of this latest flap, NPR's Vice President of News, Ellen Weiss, has asked Williams to ask that Fox remove his NPR identification whenever he is on O'Reilly.
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His sister is a jerk, I thought when I heard on NPR about a Memphis man who wanted to go to the Inauguration but couldn't stay at his sister's house in Washington because she's no fan of Barack Obama.

"Everybody in my family is a Republican. I mean, absolutely everybody," Chuck Latimer told NPR. "When I travel there, I'm always able to stay with her. But this time she said no. She's really, really opposed to Obama being elected, and I'm not. Now, I've never been -- felt outcast from my family for my political beliefs. It really was political oppression."

The problem with "The Outcast" story was that we never heard from Latimer's sister, who while not named, was negatively portrayed in the piece. Latimer told NPR he might have to sleep in his car, or "if I fly, I'll just have to drink a lot of coffee, the most I can, or try to find a nook and cranny to sleep in."

As anyone in a family knows, there can be conflicting versions of the same event. Latimer's sister may have a different story, but listeners wouldn't know since NPR didn't call her.

This story highlights a shift in how NPR finds people for stories and raises some concerns about the consequences. It used to be that reporters hunted down and verified sources before they went on the air. But through email, blog postings and NPR's social media community, more and more people are now coming to NPR to share their tales.

That's how Weekend All Things Considered (WATC) found Latimer's story, which became part of a series -- "Inaugural Journeys" -- that appeared Jan. 17-18. The idea was to share poignant travel plans and thoughts about the historic event.

"We came up with it about six weeks before the Inauguration and talked with NPR's Social Media team about building the weekend around listeners' stories," said Rick Holter, WATC's supervising senior editor. "We did a 'call out' to listeners on air to share their stories and created a webpage for them to comment."

An editorial assistant was assigned to weed through the 100 or so submissions and find the most compelling stories.

"We didn't just want to have a host read the stories," said Holter. "We wanted them to be in the voices of the listeners. [The editorial assistant] probably talked to about 15 people to find out who had the best stories and were the best talkers."

They settled on six first-person stories.

The one story that worried Holter came from a San Francisco guitar teacher who had fallen in love with a Cuban woman. The guitarist said he intended bring her to the Inauguration on a K-1 fiancee visa and marry her.

"That's the one that raised my hackles because it sounded too good to be true," said Holter. "So we called his lawyer, immigration officials and his family to check it out."

Not only was it true, but guitarist Christopher Kilday took NPR by surprise when he and Yaremys Rodriquez Gonzales came into Studio 2A to tell guest host Rebecca Roberts their story.

Roberts: So, you're planning on getting married.
Kilday: Oh, you know what? That's one thing I need to take care of.
Yaremys, will you marry me?"

She agreed on the spot. According to NPR's archives, it was the network's first on-air marriage proposal.

But the story that wasn't checked was Chuck Latimer's.

"If we had been less focused on verifying 'The Wedding' story that appeared to be the most troubled," said Holter, "then we would have gone after that one a little more."

I was bothered by Latimer's story for two reasons: It seemed so unfair to his sister, and I wondered, understanding family dynamics, if it were true. So I called Latimer, who told me he delivers pizza in Memphis.

He said he ended up spending the night at his sister's. "She did finally relent and let me stay," he said. "I think there was family pressure."

I asked if he would give me his sister's name and phone number. Absolutely not, he said.

"I can't tell her that NPR put that on the radio," said Latimer over the phone. (Millions listen to WATC.) "She would be quite upset and it would seriously damage relations in my family if she found out that story was put on the radio. I was never really worried about her hearing that. I haven't told anyone in my family. She would flip out."

Maybe Latimer's story is true. But NPR should have tried to verify it by getting the sister's side. If he had refused to put NPR in contact with her that would have answered the question of whether the story should have been aired.

"In every story we do, we should check to the best of our ability," said Richard L. Harris, director of afternoon programming. "If we had asked Chuck to let us talk to his sister and he said, 'I'm sorry, no go,' then we shouldn't put that on the air. It's a bit of a sucker punch to go on air without talking to the sister. And that should not be permitted."

WATC's Holter has since agreed his team should have tried to reach Latimer's sister. "Essentially this should reflect badly on me because I edited the piece," said Holter. The editor of a show does bear ultimate responsibility for the content, but journalism is a collaborative process and others read the piece as well.

In fairness, I contacted Rebecca Roberts who was a guest host that weekend. She did narrate "The Outcast" story but wasn't involved in the production.

"That said, I didn't think to contact the sister, and perhaps I should have," she said in an email. "I don't feel particularly strongly about it either way. It was Chuck's personal story, not a news piece. And I do know that [the editorial assistant] went the extra mile to triple check the more dubious story in that series, 'The Wedding.'"

Overall, WATC's "Inaugural Journeys" produced great stories, all of which came to NPR directly from listeners. This kind of interactivity can be a good thing because it extends NPR's reach and draws it closer to the listeners.

But depending on listeners for stories -- whether they are small anecdotes such as Latimer's tale or a major news event -- also means that NPR needs to scrupulously check all information for accuracy and fairness before it is put on air or on the Web site. That's what NPR listeners expect.
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