A Call from the Reader’s Digest Fact Checker

I’m at the gate at Logan, having just consumed a delicious bowl of Starbucks instant oatmeal. They give you packets of nuts and fruits so it’s all in all a lot better than a fatty croissant or an even fattier meat-filled breakfast sandie. I gotta hand it to the battered ‘Bucks, it was good!

I left the house at an absurdly early hour–about 5:15 am. Then I got a voicemail with an employee calling out sick. Oh jeez, sorry can’t help ya….on my way to the airport to fly to Beaumont Texas. With Donna and Ashley’s help (I love my employees!) that problem was taken care of, and I sped along right into the jaw of MassPike traffic. I sweated it a bit, then I looked again at my ticket. Phew! I thought my flight was at 9 but I actually leave at 11…Sweet! So I had time to fiddle and diddle, and go on line and Tweet and read newspapers here at my seat, that just happens to have an electric plug right underneath it.

Before I left I had some interesting emails to answer. A fact-checker for Reader’s Digest sent me an email that read like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of travel. The writer had contacted about 30 other travel experts and they wanted to get my name and title right. Love that. But I hope my quotes survive since she got many opinions and quotes from other travel editors.

That is one thing that us web journalists need to remember. Despite how we laugh and sometimes mock print outlets, do you think the Huffington Post or Google news pays fact-checkers to comb through their stories the way RD, or Time, or Newsweek, or even Esquire does? I don’t think so.