HMB Review waves its petard about, with predictable results

When the Half Moon Bay Review launched the redesign of their paper and website with a couple of snide, gratuitous remarks that seemed directed at Coastsider, I let it go. Why spoil their party?

What continues to set our newspaper and Web site apart from others is that all news content is collected and written by our editorial staff here at the Review. We don’t simply pull news stories from other sources over the hill and post them on our site.

One more thing: We promise to apply the same journalistic standards to our work on the Web that readers have become accustomed to in our news pages over our long history. Just as we don’t rush things into print, we will do our best to assure that what you read on our Web site is accurate.

Maybe they weren’t even talking about us. After all, Coastsider doesn’t "simply pull news stories from other sources and post them on our site."  We do link to interesting articles about the Coastside in the media, about once a week. But we’ve also earned our reputation for breaking hard news on the Coastside.

The wheel of karma has turned, as it always does. It’s time to return to the Review’s 108-year reputation for journalistic standards and not rushing things into print.  Tuesday night, the Review reported breaking news that Caltrans had announced a new left-turn lane on Highway 1. Caltrans had announced no such thing. And the Review only corrected their error after Coastsider posted an accurate report. 

I’m not busting the Review’s chops over a goof. We all make mistakes.  I’m asking that the Review acknowledge that they no longer have a monopoly on the facts.  Besides, it’s always a bad idea to be too full of yourself, especially if your mistakes are likely to wind up in the newspaper.