My Sunday newspaper column
Last Tuesday night, when the paper was being "put to bed" the breaking news on all of our wire services was that the buried West Virginia miners had been found alive. Three hours later -– after the newspaper had been printed -- that story took a tragic reversal when it was announced that they were dead.
The newspaper delivered to readers contained an article on the front page that not only was out of date but was wrong on a truly life-and-death issue. Many papers east of the Rockies had the same problem. Many explained, as we did, what happened in Thursday's paper.
No one takes mistakes in the newspaper more seriously than newspaper editors.
That assertion may surprise those who think we publish too many grammatical and spelling errors, but it is true. It doesn't matter whether the mistake was one of little consequence -- using a semi-colon instead of a comma -- or a major factual error.
We know readers expect us to get it right.
Our policy is to correct errors of fact as soon as we know about them. In 2005, we published 198 corrections. The only thing good I can say about that is that it is down 21 percent from 2004, when we published 252 corrections.
While we're pleased with that improvement, it still means that we made too many mistakes. And those are only the errors that we found out about. I suspect that we published other factual inaccuracies, but those were not brought to our attention.
That's why improving accuracy is one of our goals. Publishing corrections is one measure of that. When we err, we must be tenacious about setting the record straight.
The vast majority of the errors last year were caused by simple carelessness. We typed in May 3 when we meant May 23. We inserted an extra letter in someone's last name. We got someone's official title wrong.
Considering the condition of the world today, mistakes like these may seem inconsequential, but there is no such thing as a minor error. They inconvenience readers. They ruin a scrapbook item for someone.
And they make us look stupid. I don't like to appear stupid.
For instance, two months ago, we wrote that the late jazz saxophonist John Coltrane was a singer. He may have sung in the shower, but he is certainly not known for his voice.
Occasionally, we publish errors because a source gave us bad information, usually inadvertently but occasionally on purpose. Last month, a Grimsley High School student whose photo was featured on the front page gave another student's name as his own. We published that information, much to the delight of the pictured student and his friends. This is at least the second time this has occurred in the past 15 months, both times involving Grimsley students.
Another time, our mistake was not an outright error, but imprecise wording. At an author’s book signing, our reporter estimated the number of people attending the signing to be "more than 100." The sponsors of the event told me the next day that there were closer to 800 people there. :"More than 100" wasn’t wrong, but it was hardly accurate.
Every day, we work to publish the perfect paper. Because we're fallible, it's an unattainable goal. Our job often requires us to sort through conflicting and confusing information under the rush of looming deadlines. It's just the right sort of environment to cause mistakes.
We still give it a shot, though.
As another measure of accuracy, we randomly select people quoted in our stories and send them surveys asking if we quoted them correctly and whether the story is accurate and fair.
Last year, 210 surveys were returned and 92 percent of them said we got it right. That is an improvement over 2004 when 88 percent said our coverage was accurate.
I'm proud that we're getting better, and we'll keep working at it. You can help us, too. If you see an error, let us know so that we can correct it.
Because we know that you expect us to get it right.
Comments (2)
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John, how do you guys handle corrections? (and is there an "industry standard" set of practices for this?)
Here are some examples of situations that could come up:
1. A columnist makes a factual error
2. A reporter makes a factual error
3. A reporter (accurately) quotes a source, but the source's statement contains a factual error
I realize you have a life and a job and all, so may not have the time to go into it, but if you can't, any pointers as to where these sorts of issues get discussed?
(and thanks)
Posted on January 9, 2006 3:30 PM
We correct all errors in a box on page A2. (Some readers think that it's hidden there, but we think anchoring it there -- it's been there for at least 20 years -- helps readers know where to find corrections.)
a) Columnist errors run in the A2 box. Sometimes the columnist will correct the mistake in a subsequent column, too.
b) Reporter errors run in the A2 box.
c) We're all over the place on this one. The short answer is that it depends. To paraphrase Ben Bradlee: Yes, we print lies because people lie to us. We try to check it out but sometimes we can't and we go with the quote. When it's wrong, sometimes we'll correct it in the A2 box, sometimes in a follow-up story, sometimes we'll let it be corrected in a letter to the editor and sometimes not correct it.
Posted on January 9, 2006 5:33 PM