The -Werror in AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE() in the doc/examples was preventing automake from completing. Also, libtool had some warnings about needing AM_PROG_AR and wanting AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR and ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS, so I added those.
Secondly, I noticed the following when running the doc/examples ./configure script (against check.m4 from check-0.9.9, yes, outdated, I know):
configure: WARNING: AM_PATH_CHECK() is deprecated
configure: WARNING: use PKG_CHECK_MODULES([CHECK], [check >= 0.9.4]) instead
So I have also updated the example configure.ac to use the correct macro.
check-r747-doc_example-autotools.patch
The -Werror was removed from AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE in check 0.9.11 to prevent automake from erroring due to the new warning about moving to the "info-in-builddir" automake option.
The other warnings may also not be cleaned up. If you are still experiencing issues in check 0.9.11, please let us know.