Regret the Error

Christine Chinlund, The Boston Globe’s ombudsman, has published her annual tally of corrections in the paper. Overall, she says that the number of corrections at the paper in 2004 fell by almost 200 to 1,031. She also points out that the number is still the second highest than any other "recent" year (2003 was a very bad year for corrections at The Globe).

Some interesting excerpts:

• "Reporters made more errors, editors made fewer, and about 10 percent of
  all corrections were for page one stories. There was a dip in the
  number of stories that required multiple corrections, but there were
  still 77 of them. Overall, City/Region logged the most corrections –
  approaching a quarter of the total — which is not unusual, given Metro
  reporters’ higher production rates and tighter deadlines. Once again
  "misidentification" was the most common type of error."
• "The tally has its limitations. Other qualities — such as fairness and
  public service — are probably better measures of a paper’s overall
  character. But because accuracy is the bedrock of all else, the annual
  corrections tally tells us something important.
  Even allowing for humans’ fallible nature, most of the 1,031 errors
  corrected last year were preventable. The Globe’s initiative to reduce
  errors, now in its second year, still has a way to go."
• "As part of that initiative, Globe editor Martin Baron has instituted an
  auditing system whereby sources on stories are periodically called to
  see if they found the story accurate. The Globe has also set up special
  phone and e-mail lines for readers to report errors (see Page A2), and
  Baron frequently reminds the staff of the need for accuracy. All
  reports of errors now require attention by a department head, part of a
  concerted effort to correct even small mistakes that might have gone
  unacknowledged in the past."
• "A bit of context: While there were 1,031 known errors, there were at least 58,922 stories written in 2004. The analysis of types of errors shows "misidentifications" led with
  293, followed by "misstatements" at 166 and "misrepresentations" at
  111. The most troubling category — "misquotes" — remained almost
  unchanged from last year at 11. There were 98 corrections of
  misspellings, although the paper does not attempt to correct all
  misspellings or grammatical errors."

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