Monday, November 5, 2012

Jay Mathews: "This is against Post policy..."

In his column today in The Washington Post, Jay Mathews wrote about litigation involving the MCPS Board of Education and an elementary school student.  

In the comments to the article, I mentioned that Mr. Mathews has been known to run his articles by the MCPS Public Relations department for their review prior to publication.

Here is Mr. Mathews' response to my comment:

For jz---I have met many fine parents who think the solution is to demonize the school system. They have done that. It hasn't produced better results. Isn't it time to try something else? As for proofing my piece with the school system, I appreciate the chance to restate my fact-checking procedures, which are not popular with many journalists but work well for me. I show everything I write for publication to all sources to check for errors. This is against Post policy but the Post has granted me a waiver under that policy. I have been doing this for 27 years. I think it has made my stories more accurate. I find even people I am criticizing appreciate the chance to make sure I have my facts right. In this case I did show the story in advance both to the school system officials and to Seth's family. The family spokesman, Steve Zepnick, told me they were happy with the result.

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