The lie is the invoice. The article is what you actually bought.
We put a fabrication on the cover of every story on this site. Here is why that is not the cynical part.
Editorials
Signed argument. No invented headline, no correction number — just someone's name on an opinion.
No headline in this section is a lie. Every piece below is an argument this paper is making on purpose, and signs. There is no correction number here because there is nothing to correct — an argument you disagree with is not an error. How we separate the two →
A signature here is a desk, not a biography: correspondent names on this site are house pseudonyms, and that is as true in opinion as it is in the corrections. The desk owns the argument. Byline policy →
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The correction number is a promise, not a decoration
Sequential, contiguous, and published whether or not it flatters us. Take the number away and this is just a joke site.
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We label the generated images because the label is the product
Every picture on this site is machine-made and says so, in the same size type, on every surface it appears.
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Nobody has to read page two, and that is the flaw in our whole design
The strongest objection to this site is not that we lie. It is that the correction is optional and the lie is not.
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Against “do your own research”
The phrase has been hollowed out from both ends. What it should mean is a set of specific, boring, checkable habits.