Newspapers tend to place multiple filters between the reporter and the final published piece (blogs are different, of course.) — being that their reputations are based on credible reporting of the facts, every claim is often double or triple checked. Of course, there are times that this system falls apart and mistakes seep through, some small, some big.

The Examiner, Washington’s newest daily newspaper, has had a rough first few months in circulation. First the City Paper accused the paper’s delivery of skewing toward the white, affluent areas of the city, then residents complained of over-aggressive delivery services that did not take no for an answer. Recently the paper’s publisher up and left, and circulation has not been what was expected.

Today the Examiner made a mistake — not a big one, but one that begs readers to ask how the fact-checking and editorial process so spectacularly imploded. In an otherwise thought-provoking editorial entitled “Without Representation, No Taxation,” the Examiner’s editorial board claimed that the U.S. Congress had 585 members (screen capture of the mistake pictured above).

This DCist has to admit that he searched high and low for 585 members in Congress — even after calling the House Clerk and referring to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, the most liberal counting of the members of Congress would yield 541 (435 voting representatives in the House, 4 non-voting delegates, and Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner; 100 Senators, and Vice President Cheney, who is the president of the Senate), not 585. There were no remaining members to be counted — spare an extra 44 that only the Examiner knows about, someone somewhere really missed the boat on basic Congressional facts.

>> why.i.hate.dc on The Examiner’s other editorial flubs.

Update: So they finally caught the mistake. The screen capture below of the corrected editorial was taken at 4:50 p.m.