There may, in fact, be a need for Vox’s “news for dummies” model of so-called explanatory journalism but many of the folks there are simply not up to the task. These errors are routine, embarrassing and, perhaps as a result of that, not handled with clear corrections. While this bridge error was corrected, for instance, the claim that Israel had restricted traffic on it was not mentioned in that correction.
Vox has struggled with imparting correct information on everything from baptism to immigration, but Israel seems to be an area the Vox-crew finds particularly challenging. My colleague David Harsanyi has discussed problems with two recent pieces by Max Fisher (here and here) while David Bernstein writes over at The Washington Post that “Vox.com refuses to correct Max Fisher’s error re Hebron.” And here’s a fact check on just the first of those two dozen cards on Israel that suggests major problems. It would be one thing if Vox could hide the distribution of bad information, as Jon Stewart attempts to, behind claims of satire.
And I’m sorry, but this Beauchamp error is so unbelievably bad that I almost have a hard time believing it.
