Singer Kelly Clarkson claimed Clive Davis spread 'misinformation,' but Davis claimed he fact checked. (Credit: Who Say, screenshot)

ESPN site Grantland questioned Sony Music’s Chief Creative Officer Clive Davis’ claim of fact checking in his recently published memoir.  Davis’ book, The Soundtrack of My Life, described what he said happened in the production of some of Kelly Clarkson’s music. Shortly after the memoir was published, Clarkson challenged Davis with a statement online calling his version of events “misinformation” that “feels like a violation.”

But, in a TwitLonger post responding to Clarkson, Davis argued he was right, and she was wrong, because he said he fact checked.  He wrote in part:

“I am truly very sorry that she has decided to take issue with what I know to be an accurate depiction of our time together. Before the book was published, I had every fact checked with five independent individuals who were present on a daily basis throughout it all. The chapter as it is written was thoroughly verified by each and every one of them. I stand by the chapter as written in my book.”

In response to that back-and-forth, Grantland raised an interesting point, wondering who those five people were, what their relationship to Davis was, and how authoritative their fact checking could be:

“Not to quibble with the journalistic ethics of Mr. Clive Davis or anything, but is it really fact-checking when you call up five sniveling underlings and go, ‘Kelly cried in my office cause I told her ‘Since U Been Gone’ was a hit, right?’ and they go, ‘Yes, Mr. Davis. That’s exactly how I remember it too?'”

UPDATE: 3/2/2013 9:56 AM EST: Fixed date stamp. Story was published March 2.