Watertown Daily Times sets the Atlantic straight

When the Watertown Daily Times in northern New York saw that Malcolm Burnley of the Atlantic had been horribly off base on a story about large-scale agriculture, the Amish and land prices in rural St. Lawrence County, it set out to set the record straight, and did so Sunday in a 3,300-word story by Christopher Robbins.

"It is a model of good reporting and the importance of having reporters living, breathing and writing in rural communities," Daily Yonder co-editor Bill Bishop writes as he retells the story. "This is a great story, and tells so much about journalism, the relationship between city and country and how important it is to listen."

Times Managing Editor Robert D. Gorman says in the story, “The writer didn’t know the difference between bail and bale, teats and udders, DePeyster and Canton, and wrote that huge agribusinesses have moved into St. Lawrence County, which is simply not true. Despite acknowledging Mr. Burnley’s factual errors, his editors are still convinced he methodically unraveled an incredibly complex socioeconomic trend in regional farming. I have told them Mr. Burnley got that wrong, too, but to no avail.” The Atlantic has corrected six errors but the story remains posted.