Before we begin, please note that sometime late Monday night, fire gutted a three-story apartment and commercial building on Eddy Street in the Hull sector of Gatineau. It made the 40 people, who were living in the residential portion section of the 95 Eddy Street building, homeless. Five businesses were destroyed, including De La Ghetto clothing Shop, Blanchisserie Eddy laundromat and La petite cuisine de Tony.

95 Eddy Street, courtesy of Google Maps
The Ottawa Citizen (a local Ottawa newspaper) reports that there were no injuries caused by the 6:02 pm blaze.

According to the Gatineau police, the Canadian Red Cross quickly mobilized to help displaced residents. With the spat of fires razing apartment buildings in both Ottawa and Gatineau of late, we at foodiePrints have made another donation to the Red Cross. We encourage readers to do so as well. Here is a link to options for donating: Options. Here is a link for donating online: Donate Online.

Now, why is an apartment fire on a food blog? Two reasons. Firstly, I work in Gatineau and have frequented the family-owned and run restaurant, La petite cuisine de Tony. They made a decent Lebanese fatayer. Secondly, I am slightly troubled by how CBC Ottawa reported the incident. My concern stems from an American survey I came across last night via the PR Squared blog.

The survey, conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations came up with, what was for me, a startling finding:

...an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists surveyed, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter.

Cision however added the following caveat:

...it's also clear that while social media is supplementing the research done by journalists, it is not replacing editors' and reporters' reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism.

Indeed, as many have no doubt observed, the speed with which a lead becomes a story and is reported has increased. Most local news concerns in Ottawa even have twitter accounts. I have seen both @CTVOttawa and @OttawaCitizen request pictures or accounts from witnesses of events.

At 8:30 AM (EST) this morning, CBC Ottawa's website reported the fire with a photo that had the caption "The fire destroyed 16 apartments and five businesses, including a bakery and a dry cleaner." The report read that a brick building at 88 Eddy Street had been the site of the blaze and has since been torn down. A friend of mine graciously provided me a screen capture of the report as it was originally posted:

CBC Ottawa's Original Report
He had it cached on his phone from when I told him that the wonderful little Portuguese bakery and sandwich shop I introduced him to two weeks ago may have burned down. The shop's green awning is in the picture from the original report.

The shop, called Estoril, is situated at 89 Eddy Street. I am particularly fond of it and its owners, visiting the eatery twice a month since I first discovered it last June.

Well, there are some problems with CBC Ottawa's story as it was originally reported. First, the building at 88 Eddy Street is across the street from Estoril. The building at 89 Eddy Street cannot possibly hold 16 apartments.

89 Eddy Street, courtesy of Google Maps
There is also no dry cleaner. Such is readily apparent from Google Maps.

At 10:30 AM (EST), CBC Ottawa updated its story to change the address to 95 Eddy Street.

CBC Ottawa's Updated Report
The update also added several accounts of the fire and a photo of the torn down building, taken by CBC's Chad Pawson.

At 12:37 PM (EST), CBC Ottawa updated its story again to change the number of apartments in the building to 12, forgetting to change the caption next to the paragraph. The caption still read 16.

To CBC Ottawa, may I suggest you take a little time to verify facts before you post a story, especially a headlining one? This includes getting addresses straight. If you can find the time to dispatch someone to the scene to take a picture and attach a Google Map to the online report, you can find the time to demonstrate that fast-paced journalism doesn't have to be sloppy journalism.

For instance, as I just found out by walking down Eddy, judging from the layer of ice on the building, Estoril did suffer water damage from the firefighters putting out the fire in the adjacent building. Estoril is presently closed, but I saw one of the concerned owners go in and out. It has not been torn down. However, the City of Gatineau is co-ordinating cleanup of of the torn down buidling and Gatineau police is re-directing car and pedestrian traffic as needed.



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