Wire-story disclaimer at cbs2.com

Written by Adrian Holovaty on February 13, 2004

Los Angeles' cbs2.com does something interesting with wire content. It displays this disclaimer above AP stories (example):

In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.

Though it's unintentionally harsh toward the AP (as pointed out by Lost Remote), the notice is not a bad idea.

If you're going to give your site's readers the same regurgitated wire stories they can find at any Web site that regurgitates AP copy, you might as well come clean about the regurgitation.

Comments

Posted by anonymous on February 20, 2004, at 12:07 a.m.:

I suport cbs2 news.

Posted by Jay Small on March 11, 2004, at 4:08 p.m.:

When I ran the Web site for The Indianapolis Star, we ran a similar disclaimer on our wire feed indexes -- not so much calling out spelling or grammar errors, but feed and filtration errors. No matter how good the filters, we couldn't always catch AP's messages to editors, or story budgets, or other "insider" stuff that the public shouldn't see.

Posted by Dena on March 6, 2006, at 7:56 a.m.:

They ought to post a notice on "60 Minutes", too. Dan Rather's story about the roofer who was charged outrageous fees by Providence St. Joseph's Hospital should have noted that in L.A., the HOMEOWNER must carry Worker's Comp. insurance for just such itinerant workers. Instead, Dan chose to home in on a hospital, neglecting to mention that insurance companies negotiate fees for their insureds in advance. The roofer shouldn't pay; the homeowner should.

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