Minneapolis is 500 miles from St. Paul, right?

Maine Sunday Telegram map

Everyone makes mistakes. As a former newspaper reporter, I know that includes journalists who are racing the clock as they do battle with unforgiving deadlines.

Sometimes in journalism, as in life, errors are unavoidable, despite our best efforts. A reporter may have good reason to believe a piece of information is rock solid, only to learn later that it was a half-truth, or misleading without context, or fiction posing as fact.

But there are other times when mistakes are so amazingly stupid they become mind-boggling.

Such was the case Saturday night when the NBC Nightly News ran a story on that train that derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. You've probably seen footage of this catastrophe on TV. The train was carrying crude oil, and the derailment sparked explosions and fires that destroyed the center of the town, killing at least 20 people.

When the story first broke, NBC reported that Lac-Mégantic is about 185 miles from the U.S. border and that American firefighters had raced to the town to help out. As a Mainer who has visited Quebec many times, I heard alarm bells . . . 185 miles? The claim made no sense.

Plopping myself down at the computer, I determined within seconds that Lac-Mégantic is not 185 or 155 or 125 or even 75 miles from the border. It's 10 miles or so north of the Maine line. That fact is readily verifiable by anyone with Internet access; a good, old-fashioned atlas; or a highway map. And it explains why Maine communities sent firefighters to pitch in, which would have defied belief had it required a drive of some 200 miles or more.

When we, as consumers of news, catch ridiculous mistakes in stories that involve places or events we’re familiar with, an obvious question arises: How reliable are stories on topics that we know nothing about?