A new Alberta government website intended to bring balance and accuracy to news reportage about the province is off to a rough start, as the site’s second entry incorrectly identifies the newspaper it purports to be correcting.
“All media outlets make mistakes, on occasion,” says the intro paragraph on the government’s For the Record page. “Unfortunately, not all media outlets have a policy or forum to correct their mistakes. This site exists to help in that situation.”
So far, both entries are about the oilsands. The second entry addresses a recent report about the oilsands’ deadly effect on migratory birds, referring to a story about the report in the “Toronto Globe and Mail.” The entry links to a government PDF that assures readers that oilsands operations have “strict environmental requirements, including bird protection, and are required to collect dead birds and report the numbers.”
However, there is no paper called the Toronto Globe and Mail; the publication is a Toronto-based national newspaper called The Globe and Mail.
Despite its insistence on accuracy, the government isn’t admitting its mistake. “It’s the Toronto Globe and Mail — don’t kid yourself,” says Tom Olsen, spokesperson for Premier Ed Stelmach. “We don’t see that as an error. We see The Globe and Mail as the Toronto Globe and Mail.”
Olsen, a former columnist for the Calgary Herald, says the site was created “to get the best factual information to Albertans as possible.”
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