Sunday, May 23, 2010

Althouse Spanks Wapo For Misstating Texas Cirriculum Changes

Althouse is a must read here and she is right, if media outlets plan to run an article on a subject, they should first actually read the documentation in question and they should definitely use accurate quotes instead of simply their "understanding" of what they have heard or read.

After going through the Wapo story, piece by piece and actually providing the correct verbiage to correct Wapo's sloppy work, Althouse concludes:

Virtually everything cited in the article to make the curriculum seem controversial is misstated! Appalling!


Althhouse also does what Wapo didn't... she provided the link to the documents in question so people can read and learn for themselves.

Let me embarrass the Washington Post. Below, the material from the WaPo article, written by Michael Birnbaum, is indented. After the indented part, I've located the relevant quote from the Board of Education text, found here. (I'm searching 3 PDF documents: Economics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits Subchapter A. High School; Social Studies Subchapter B. Middle School; Social Studies Subchapter C. High School.)


Blogs, such as Althouse may be opinion based, but they provide readers with something critical that major media does not..... links to the data used to determine that opinion, so that any reader truly interested in developing their own opinion, can simply click, read and analyze for themselves instead of letting someone else, whether it is the media or a blogger, tell them what they should be thinking.

Kudos to Althouse for doing the homework Wapo didn't both doing.

Note to readers
- Notice I did not discuss the actual story about the new Texas Cirriculum?

There are links provided in the Althouse quote... clickity clickity click everyone.

Then you decide for yourself whether the misrepresentation from Wapo were from ignorance or a deliberate attempt to create controversy.

.