I normally have a lot of respect for Dan Gillmor, who offers a lot of good insights about the media and isn’t afraid to call out bad reporting when he sees it. What transpired in his most recent blog post, however, really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

(UPDATE: After pointing Dan to this post, he responded in the comment section here that he wasn’t done updating yet when I wrote this post. I checked and indeed there is now a note at the end of his post. By my rough estimate, it’s been about 15-20 minutes since I first published this post. Kudos to Dan for the quick reply. My original post continues below.)

In the post, Gillmor criticizes a story in the Arizona Republic about how more people are turning to psychics and astrologists for financial advice during the recession. If you read the post now (I’m writing at about 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, Oct. 11), you’ll likely agree that much of Gillmor’s criticism is legitimate. The story does fail to cite any real source for data showing that psychics are getting more customers, and it does fail to include any quotes from the customers.

So what’s my beef with the post? Well, see that little “Updated” line at the top of the post? Any idea what that update entailed? There’s nothing in the current version of the post to denote the changes. In this case, the changes are pretty drastic. Unfortunately, the original version wasn’t up long enough for me to find a Google-cached version. Here’s a screen capture of the current post, with the updates highlighted (I did this from memory, so it may not be all-encompassing). Basically, Gillmor added the following paragraphs:

Consider the way the story starts. The word “apparently” is a tip-off that the piece is based on no actual data. Who’s the source for this alleged mini-flood of new customers? Why, the people selling the product. Makes sense to me: In I-can-see-into-the-future territory, we can just take their word for it.

Not a single customer is quoted. We hear only from the people who are claiming to be getting this influx of new customers. Can’t the newspaper find even one client?

It even provides a helpful sidebar explaining the difference between psychics, astrologers, fortune-tellers and mediums (in each case with the same level of “here’s what they say, never mind what science says” logic). For example, we learn that a psychic is “sensitive to non-physical or supernatural forces and influences, able to see into the future and into the events in a person’s life. Often uses tools such as tarot cards, crystals or tea leaves.” Gosh, thanks the the deeper insight.

Now, look at my comments on that post (Nos. 1, 2, and 5) and note the timestamps. If you wonder why none of those comments addressed Gillmor’s reaction about the lack of data and quotes from customers, it’s because those passages did not exist when I posted those comments, the last coming before I went to bed well after 2 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday night. And this isn’t a case of Gillmor hitting “Publish” prematurely. He tweeted the post Saturday night (that’s how I found it in the first place). Heck, there was even a discussion thread on Twitter based on that version of the post Saturday night. Look at the exchanges in the discussion shortly after Gillmor’s initial tweet, and you’ll also not see any mention of what is now his main criticism of the article.

Hey, I make revisions to my blog posts all the time. If it’s something minor, like correcting a typo or rewriting a sentence so it reads more smoothly, I won’t bother to highlight the change. However, it’s a different story if it’s something that drastically changes the nature of the post, and I believe that to be the case here. Before the update, Gillmor’s main — in fact, only — reason for calling the article irresponsible was that it didn’t include a disclaimer warning readers that psychics’ predictions are not reliable financial advice. Now, in the updated version, that has been relegated to a secondary complaint. The first criticism in the post is now about the lack of data and customer quotes (which I agree is a legitimate complaint). So he goes from calling the article irresponsible because of the lack of a warning that astrological financial advise is not reliable to calling it irresponsible because of shabby reporting about the increase in customers for fortune-tellers. That’s just a tad more than fixing a typo or tagging on an additional thought.

I don’t have a big problem with him making the change — although it does strike me as a bit of a “Well, my initial criticism didn’t hold as much water as I thought, but they also sucked at this” move — but I do have a problem with such a drastic, material change not being clearly marked because it does affect the way people perceive the post and the comments. The honest, and transparent, thing to have done would’ve been either attaching “no data, no customers” criticism at the end of the original post, or putting it into the original post in a different font or color and clearly noting, with a timestamp, that this was added later. As a result of neither of those being done, the pre-update comments that I left on the post, which take issue with his suggestion that without a disclaimer people would take psychic predictions as serious financial advice, now come off as nitpicking or missing the point since they seem to be focusing strictly on a secondary item in the post and completely ignoring the first and primary criticism. If we’re serious about responsible, transparent reporting and a commitment to reality, then surely we can do better than this.