Tech site Motherboard retracts two Trump articles

Motherboard Tech news site Motherboard has retracted two articles related to Disney and President Donald Trump due to factual errors and questions about sourcing, reports Todd Spangler of Variety.

Spangler reports, “‘After a thorough investigation into the sourcing of two stories, ‘Here’s the Secret Backstage Trump Drama at Walt Disney World’s Hall of Presidents’ and ‘Behind the Scenes of Disney’s Donald Trump ‘Hall of Presidents’ Installation,’ and the identification of several factual errors, we have decided to retract both pieces,’ Motherboard said in an editorial note posted Wednesday in place of the two articles.

“The note added, ‘We are conducting a full editorial review to pinpoint how this source was vetted, and how these stories were approved and published in violation of our usual editorial workflow. We fell short of our standards, and regret the error.'”

“The Motherboard story published on Monday, June 26, alleged that there was internal debate about whether Trump’s animatronic figure would be speaking in the exhibit. The story also claimed, citing an anonymous source, that Trump’s team was insisting on writing the entire speech for his robotic avatar in Disney World’s Hall of Presidents.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.