AOL Patch Has a Funny Idea About Being Committed to Accuracy and Acknowledging Mistakes

New Rochelle Patch Editor Michael Woyton who has a habit of publishing knowingly false information on his site has put up an absurdist posted entitled “New Rochelle Patch Corrections and Clarifications“. Woyton replaced former New Rochelle Patch Editor Allison Esposito who plagiarized material from Talk of the Sound and then repeatedly lied about it and was eventually fired as a result. Both of them work or worked for Katie O’Connor who has made a reputation for herself as a liar who hires thieves who lie. Is it any wonder that these three hacks were drummed out of legitimate news organizations and ended up on the scrap heap known as AOL Patch.

Woyton writes:

“We take transparency seriously. We’re committed to accuracy and will acknowledge our mistakes and fix them as quickly as possible.”

Really?

Then explain this email originally sent in November.

From: Robert Cox
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 00:41:36 -0500
To: Michael Woyton

Michael,

Happy holidays. A heads up.

I run the web site for the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle. Your columnist appears to have linked an online directory called chamberofcommerce.com and confused that with newrochellechamber.org.

from Michael Woyton
to Robert Cox
cc Jonann Brady
date Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 9:18 AM

Thanks Bob. I’ll have my sub fix it.

Three weeks later the uncorrected story was still online.

Then on December 20th I wrote about an other article which was replete with false statements and misinformation regarding my role in a photo book project. This article is transparently an attempt to write me and Talk of the Sound of the story of the project, a project with which I played a central role from day one and without whose effort the project would not have existed. After discussing that matter with Woyton at about 7 AM that day, he said he would take the article but asking that I put in writing what I told him over the telephone so that he could review the matter with the author. As requested, I wrote up the email and sent it. The article remained online and remains there to this day, replete with the full complement of false statements and misleading information. Having failed to keep his word, towards the end of the day Woyton wrote to say he had decided to leave the article up because the only source for the story added a comment to the story and that he felt this should be sufficient. No where in journalism would a reader comment be considered the same as a correction.

In the resulting article – $50 MILLION BULLY: Is AOL Patch New Rochelle Capable of Honest Reporting? The Answer Appears to be “No” — I pointed out that the Chamber of Commerce error from November was still uncorrected on December 20th.

Shortly thereafter on December 20th, Woyton added a disclaimer:

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly linked to chamberofcommerce.com instead of the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce. Patch regrets the error.

Here is the relevant section of the original article:

“My kids have had their lists all ready to go for about two weeks now, and I have an idea of what to get a few people on my list, but where do I go to get it?

Before I head out the door, I like to have a plan in mind, and I really like to support New Rochelle shop owners. So the first thing I do is go on line to check out what information the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce has to offer.

Here’s what I found. If you go here you will find a detailed list by category. That’s right. Eliminate the guesswork, and find the best deals.

You want toy stores? Clothing? Discount stores? Department stores? You’ll find a full list, at your fingertips.“

Consider this as you read yet another laugher from Woyton.

“Once fixed, an error will be clearly explained in an editor’s note in italics at either the top or bottom of the story.”

“If you see a factual error, tell us about it and we’ll make sure we get it right.”

Again, really?

Here is a great example of Patch’s idea of journalistic integrity, their “correction note” from January 3rd about the “correction” they made on December 20th for an article they said they would corrected on December 3rd.

Nov. 26, 2010
Holiday Deals in Our Own Backyard!: A previous version of this article incorrectly linked to chamberofcommerce.com instead of the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce. 

Clearly explained? The problem was the wrong link? Ha! Ha! Ha!

This was an article which purported to describe the authors joy at using the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site. One problem, she had the wrong site altogether.

I happen to be quite familiar with the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site since I created it and manage it.

The issue is not that the article “incorrectly linked to chamberofcommerce.com” but that the entire article was based on the author’s experience using a completely different site which she THOUGHT was the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site. The article makes repeated references to some site other than the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site. As the creator and manager of the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site I would appreciate their removing all of these entirely false references about detailed lists, by categories, of New Rochelle shop owners none of which exists on the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site. My requests have been acknowledged but ignored. There is no listing of toy stores, clothing stores, discount stores and department stores on the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site. There is no “full list, at your fingertips” on the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site. The entire article is a crock; changing the link is not corrective at all.

Woyton was aware of this weeks ago. I told him about it on December 1st. He said he would fix it back on December 3rd He never did; once again, saying he would do something and then not doing it. Apparently the phrase “my word is my bond” is lost on Mr. Woyton.

Here is how plug-dumb stupid this guy Woyton is. Even after I have pointed out the error…TWICE…and even after he publishes what he calls a “correction” back on December 20, the story is still entirely wrong. Rather than correct the article so that it correctly states and links to the ChamberofCommerce.com web site as it should (since that is what the article is about), Woyton leaves all of the same information up but changes the name of the site and the link to the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site even though nothing that the author describes exists on that site. You can’t make this stuff up.

The correction was not a correction at all but simply some sort of half-ass attempt to cover up the REAL error which is that the author was using a site for weeks not realizing that the site was not the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site but some other Yellow Pages type site and then wrote about the ChamberofCommerce.com site as it was the Chamber of Commerce of New Rochelle web site. One idiot “correcting” another idiot all working for Queen Idiot Katie O’Connor.

In short, they have had a story up now Since November that is flat out wrong, they have been informed of the error repeatedly and twice now said they were fixing the error but have yet to do so and, worse, engaged in a proactive effort to mask their error by pretending the only error was that they linked to the wrong site and now posting this sanctimonious boilerplate drivel about giving a damn about accuracy and getting their facts write.

If Homer is nodding it is because he is getting ready to puke from reading the crap they called journalism being published by AOL Patch.