In last Thursday’s Braxton Democrat-Central, we published what we thought was a historical based article on the community of Corley. As duly noted in an Editor’s Note, attached to the article, it was reprinted from an online website, by the name of MountainStateExplorer. Long time readers of our newspapers know that we sparingly reprint articles that appear in other news outlets.
We do make exceptions… when the information is important and we feel that our readers didn’t have adequate access to the original source or as in this case, items of historical importance. Such articles often come in handy when filling space at deadline. That was a factor with this particular article, but I also enjoyed the read as apparently did the reader who originally sent it to me.
Well, in this case, thanks to an observant subscriber, we have discovered that the information is not accurate at all. The photograph that accompanied the article is believed to be store fronts and railroad tracks from the early years of Thurman, WV. Our reader, James Keener III, also researched the information accompanying the picture and found out that it matches the community of Corley, Indiana.
I imagine this article was generated by artificial intelligence based on the picture and the details. I regret that we were duped and apologize for not doing our due diligence because of a short deadline. We always strive to provide our readers with the timeliest and, more importantly, accurate information possible. However, we are human, and we do error. When we do, I sincerely believe it is absolutely necessary to own our mistakes and do our best to correct them.
We hope this mistake didn’t cause too much grief for any of our readers and we certainly appreciate James Keener bringing it to our attention. We will work even harder to fulfill our objective of being a true source of local news that you can believe in and trust!
On a lighter note… We took a mini-vacation last week. For the past several years, our lake family has been renting a cabin in Cannan Valley the first of December to spend a relaxing weekend and celebrate the winter birthdays of our clan. This year, there were over twenty-six of us in two separate next-door houses. Unfortunately, two members of our party had to cancel at the last minute due to work obligations.
We have no agenda… some went shopping; some caught up on their sleep; others, including yours truly, saw some great college football games. Of course, we had way too much to eat topped off with a delicious birthday cake. The weather, while rainy, was very conducive to a relaxing, do nothing, weekend. We left, apparently just in the nick of time as the weatherman was predicting 11 hours of snow on Monday.
