Fact-Checking: The Kids Are Alright

More on fact-checking in the publishing industry in today's Wall Street Journal (free for all this time):

Even though the scandal has rocked the book business, publishers and literary agents say that employing fact-checkers is impracticable. But all of the textbooks published by Pearson PLC's Pearson Education unit are fact-checked, said spokeswoman Wendy Spiegel. The Pearson unit issues several thousand new textbooks each year, she said. Textbooks are a particularly profitable segment of the book business.

"We fact-check them because we stand behind the integrity of our content," Ms. Spiegel said. "We couldn't afford not to have fact-checkers."

April Hattori, a spokeswoman for McGraw-Hill Education, the textbook arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., said all of its textbooks are fact-checked. "Our goal is to ensure accuracy, she said.

The same goes for many other nonfiction books for kids. "Every book we publish is fact-checked," said E. Russell Primm III, president of Editorial Directions Inc., in Chicago, which produces an estimated 300 titles a year for educational publishers.

Mr. Primm said his eight-year-old company creates series for publishers, hiring the writers, copy editing the books and providing the art. He employs a small army of free-lance fact-checkers. The books involved are relatively short, ranging from 120 words for a preschooler to 60,000 words for a high-school text. "The argument about not having enough time or money to fact-check is ridiculous," Mr. Primm said.

At The Child's World Inc., a Chanhassen, Minn., publisher specializing in preschool through grade three, Mary Berendes, director of production, said that all 200 titles published annually are fact-checked. "We started using fact-checkers three or four years ago because librarians would call and say this or that date is wrong," Ms. Berendes said.

One veteran full-time fact-checker, Peter Garnham, said that some publishers pay by the hour; others pay a flat fee per title. He rarely gets more than $500 to $600 per title. Mr. Garnham said he works for eight publishing houses, mostly vetting children's nonfiction. Though he has offered his services to major New York publishers of books targeting adults, he has so far been rebuffed. "In terms of the cost of publishing, it's not that expensive," Mr. Garnham said.

People often say that you can't put a price on your integrity and reputation. Many in the publishing world apparently have done just that and decided that maintaining them are just not worth the cost.