Annals of fact-checking
It emerges that Cosmopolitan magazine in Britain has had to make a grovelling apology to movie star Scarlett Johansson for quotes included in a long interview featured on its cover as "Scarlett: Why I had to get married".
It turns out, says a story published by the Guardian, that the contentious quotes about Johansson's husband Ryan Reynolds were inserted by the editors using copy they bought, incredibly, from London-based celebrity agency. Johansson, who is notoriously reticent about her personal life, said the statements were "completely fabricated" and threatened to sue. The magazine apologized (and no doubt wrote "I must fact-check, I must fact-check..." 100 times on the blackboard):
It turns out, says a story published by the Guardian, that the contentious quotes about Johansson's husband Ryan Reynolds were inserted by the editors using copy they bought, incredibly, from London-based celebrity agency. Johansson, who is notoriously reticent about her personal life, said the statements were "completely fabricated" and threatened to sue. The magazine apologized (and no doubt wrote "I must fact-check, I must fact-check..." 100 times on the blackboard):
"Cosmopolitan would like to apologise to our readers and Scarlett Johansson for inaccuracies in our January issue where we said she talked about her marriage and her relationship with her husband. We now understand Ms Johansson has not commented publicly on her married life and did not do so on this occasion."
posted by D. B. Scott at
9:38 am
1 Comments:
I've always been under the impression that magazines in the U.K. do not fact check their copy. True? If so, I'm surprised embarrassments like this don't happen more often.
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