UPDATE: McEntee cops to SLTrib screw up

To her credit, Peg McEntee took responsibility for an embarrassing error Monday:

“I have apologized to the governor and now I apologize to my readers.”

Peg McEntee took Gov. Gary Herbert down with a systematic attack on the empty platitudes in the Guv’s inauguration speech. Her column was headlined: “McEntee: Hey, governor, hollow rhetoric won’t heal Utah’s ills”.

Unfortuantely, McEntee  relied on a printed text she found online. Because she didn’t go to the event or, apparently, watch it on TV or follow it on Twitter, she and her editors didn’t learn until after her column was published online that she had based her attack on Herbert’s 2011 speech.

On first seeing the column, Herbert deputy chief of staff Ally Isom said the column was “journalism at its worst.”  Other staffers wondered if McEntee has editorial oversight.

Of course, journalists make mistakes all the time and McEntee showed one way to take the hit and walk it back. It remains to be seen how much the mishap has damaged McEntee’s credibility.