Leslie Plommer is an associate editor in the office of the Guardian readers editor (ombudsman). She occasionally fills in for the editor by taking over the weekly column, as she did last weekend. Plommer shared a bit of news about the paper’s print corrections column, and announced a new webpage dedicated to accuracy and standards. [...]
At some point every newly appointed ombudsman/public editor will address the issue of errors and corrections. Often they come back to it again and again. The former ombudsman at the Washington Post, Andrew Alexander, is a good example. (See here, here, here). His successor, Patrick B. Pexton, has now weighed in with a blog post [...]
Alicia Shepard just finished her stint as NPR ombudsman, and her final blog post included this recommendation: Hire someone to handle corrections. Between May 19 and May 27, apparently there were no mistakes made on NPR. I simply do not believe that. What I do believe is that the folks in charge of corrections have [...]
From my latest column for Columbia Journalism Review, here are my five suggestions for how news ombudsmen can make themselves essential in today’s newsroom: 1. Build Your Blog – Many ombudsmen, especially those at newspapers, write a regular column. This used to be the most visible, tangible benefit of an ombudsman. Going forward, the column [...]
I’ve since learned what real, excruciating pain NPR triggered with its false news report that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died, which was repeated on npr.org, e-mail alerts, Twitter and picked up by other news organizations. NPR correspondent Ted Robbins is based in Tucson. He was at the scene Jan. 8 when his cell phone rang [...]
The holiday season is supposed to be a time of happiness, but there has been little cheer from readers upset about a chronic Post problem: a lack of quality control. The past few years have seen a crescendo of complaints about typos, grammatical errors and minor factual mistakes. In recent weeks, a string of lapses [...]
… The Star published 328 corrections in 2010, down slightly from 347 in 2009. While no journalist is ever pleased about any errors, that’s less than one identified published error for every day the Star publishes. Not a bad track record given that we publish the equivalent of a book daily. On the accuracy front, [...]
Andrew Alexander, the Washington Post’s ombudsman, is doing a good job on the corrections beat at the paper. Last year, he wrote two columns about the paper’s problems with handling corrections requests (1,2). (See my previous post here.) Yesterday, he followed up with a blog post that includes some good news, along with details about [...]
Andrew Alexander, the Washington Post’s ombudsman, dedicated his weekend column to the issue of corrections. Back in March, he blew the whistle on the fact that the paper’s corrections policy and procedures were failing readers. Sunday’s column is something of a follow up. It also revealed that at the end of November the Post had [...]
Just over two years ago, the public editor of the Orlando Sentinel wrote a column alerting readers to the fact that the paper had experienced a spike in the number of corrections. He was clear about the cause of the increased errors: When the Sentinel tightened its financial belt back in June, it lost a [...]
Two recent columns by newspaper ombudsmen caught my eye. Kathy English, public editor of the Toronto Star, wrote her latest column about the paper’s policy regarding the “unpublishing” of articles. An excerpt: … Generally, the Star believes that unpublishing is a serious act as it erases the online history of the Star’s journalism. The Star’s [...]
From a column by Express-News public editor Bob Richter: Frustrated by the inability to do anything about the high cost of fuel or groceries and the egg-frying-on-the-sidewalk South Texas heat, let’s turn to something you and I have the ability to change for the better: Making the San Antonio Express-News the most trusted, respected and [...]
The Torontoist blog has an interesting story about a man, a would-be burglar, and a series of remarkable photos. Plus, a little bit of copyright infringement. In July of last year, Joel Charlebois, a Toronto resident, caught a man trying to break into his home. While trying to escape, the man fell from a second [...]
In November of last year, I was invited to the Toronto Star by Kathy English, the paper’s public editor, to give a presentation to newsroom staff. The Star is Canada’s highest circulation daily, and one of very few* media outlets in the country with a full-time public editor/ombudsman. Prior to my presentation, we sat down [...]
From journalism.co.uk: The sourcing and fact checking process for stories on the BBC News website must be addressed by management, the BBC trust Editorial Standards Committee has recommended. The committee made the suggestions as part of its response to a complaint about an article on the site, which pointed to inaccuracies in the report on [...]
LA Times critic Mary McNamara received a flood of emails from readers after she wrote that George Washington had served one term as president. The paper’s Readers’ Representative Journal has a post up that includes a mea culpa from McNamara. It’s also on the Show Tracker blog. She’s clearly mortified to have slipped up on [...]
Carol Goodhue, readers representative of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote a recent column about how a correction to an error in William Kristol’s New York Times column didn’t make its way to her paper before publication. As a result, the Times has now changed the way it sends out corrections to subscribers of its news [...]
In a recent column, Ted Vaden, public editor of the Raleigh News & Observer, calls errors “the low-grade virus of newspapers — always there, mostly benign, sometimes flaring up in maddening eruptions of inaccuracy.” Vaden offers space to a loyal reader who complains that the paper’s corrections don’t pass the “recycle bin” test, meaning “Don’t [...]
Back in December, Wayne Ezell, the reader advocate of the Times-Union, offered a recounting of a story and correction that went awry: When last Sunday’s Business section featured a story and photo about nine luxury condos and nine boat slips being sold at auction in Queens Harbor, it came as quite a surprise to some [...]
Kathy English, the public editor of the Toronto Star, wrote a recent column that reveals the paper’s corrections total for 2007. She also announced that the paper will have a corrections/errors database up and running in 2008. (See these 1,2 articles to learn about this kind of database.) English also wrote a November column about [...]
Information that can’t be trusted is not less valuable; it’s worthless. Those words were written by Orlando Sentinel public editor Manning Pynn in an important column published on Sunday. (Romenesko spotted it.) Pynn was moved to write the column after noticing a spike in the number of corrections over recent months. “In the past three [...]
