Fargo Forum Quietly Corrects One “Fact” From Editorial They Plagiarized From An Email Forward

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jan 28, 2012
1:47pm

Earlier this week I pointed out that the anti-oil hysterics at the Fargo Forum had ran a list of “facts” about North Dakota’s oil boom, which they described as “anecdotal and confirmed,” which was blatantly plagiarized from an unsourced email forward that had been circulating in the state’s inboxes.

Well it turns out, despite the sanctimonious assurances of the Forum, that the facts weren’t “confirmed” at all. The Forum has been forced to print a correction for at least one of them:

A statistic in an editorial on Page A4 of Wednesday’s Forum titled “Startling Oil Patch numbers” was incorrect. Trinity Hospital in Minot, N.D., has not hired 115 nurses from the Philippines.

This is what happens when you write editorials based on whatever nonsense got forwarded to your email inbox. And, remember, the Forum claimed these “facts” were “confirmed.”

Who did the confirmation for the Forum? Or were they just lying to us?

It’s pretty clear that the folks at Forum Communications are in such a hurry to bash oil development in North Dakota that they can’t even be bothered to fact-check an email forward before reprinting it as if it were their own words.

By the way, here’s a link to the original editorial. Note that they haven’t bothered to mention their correction of inaccurate “facts” there.

But remember, folks, it’s we bloggers who are giving journalism a bad name or something. Just ask Forum opinion editor Jack Zaleski.