Ah, Content Management Systems
Toby Stern over at Crescat Sententia points to an AP fluke on the Washington Post site. Because it seems to be an error, I'm linking to the screenshot on Crescat, not the original link: that may disappear. The 'article' reads:
Please kill the story Limbaugh-Painkillers, V9991. Rush Limbaugh has not been charged with doctor shopping.
My guess is that someone typed an instruction into an article database by mistake: either an AP reporter placing it on a wire so it automatically got published on the Post's content management system, or the Post placing an article 'live' when it shouldn't have. Notably, the New York Times carries the same story in its feed. (The two sites seem to use a similar, if not the same, back end system, or at least a lot of the code looks the same.)
Oh, OK. Some of you don't care about the code, you want to know what the story is about. So much less interesting. It seems that the AP published a story stating that Limbaugh was accused of 'doctor shopping', and is now trying to kill the story. The error was made around 9AM on Saturday morning, and corrected at 5PM. But neither the Post or the Times have taken the story off their sites.
I wonder how either paper normally handle 'kill' orders from the wires. The temptation is to ascribe it to bias against Rush Limbaugh (I'm sure some will), but if it's not policy to leave the story and the kill, I'm betting it's just a mistake...
Comments
I've seen similar errors on Yahoo!s football news service. So unless there's also a bias against scunthorpe united...
bhntktPosted by: martin | January 5, 2004 03:10 AM
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, Martin: uncover the vast right-wing conspiracy against Scunthorpe United...
ciwePosted by: A. Rickey | January 5, 2004 11:04 AM