Regret the Error

Jeff Jarvis, who blogs at BuzzMachine, writes and consults for The Guardian, and also teaches journalism at CUNY, was gracious enough to write the foreword for the Regret the Error book. He has posted an excerpt of his excellent contribution on his blog. Below is an excerpt of the excerpt, but you should go read what he has online. The full version is, of course, in the book.

Nobody’s perfect – not even journalists . . . especially not journalists.

Reporters and editors make mistakes. Indeed, they are probably more likely than most to do so. For just as bartenders break more glass because they handle more beer, so journalists who traffic in facts are bound to drop some along the way. . . .

It is time for journalists to trade in their hubris and recapture their humanity and humility. And the best way to do that is simply to admit: We make mistakes.

Craig Silverman’s examination of the art of the correction in his blog and now this book could not come at a better time for journalism. For the public’s trust in news organizations is falling about as fast as their revenues (and, yes, those may be related). One way to earn back that trust is to face honestly and directly the trade’s faults. The more – and more quickly – that news organizations admit and correct their mistakes, prominently and forthrightly, the less their detractors will have grounds to grumble about them.

But for journalists, to admit mistakes is to expose failure; corrections, in this logic, diminish stature and authority rather than enhance them. In my experience, some reporters and editors have tended to think that if they just ignored a mistake for long enough, it – or at least its memory and stench – would fade away.

But now that journalists’ readers and sources can be heard via their personal printing presses on the web, it is no longer possible to ignore errors or, worse, to hide them. . . .

But this discussion should be about so much more than just errors and corrections. This is about new and better ways to gather, share, and verify news. And it is about a radically different and improved relationship between journalists and the public they serve. These changes in the culture and practice of journalism will not just bolster journalism’s reputation but expand its reach and impact in society.

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