"I spent the week writing corrections," writes Sharon Burnside, the public editor of the Toronto Star, in a column published back in May. (We just came across it.) She takes a look at errors and accuracy while also offering up two simple — yet powerful — examples of how media mistakes can impact average people. It’s a good read.
…Do these mistakes matter?
You bet.
Ask
accountant Marvin Vissman, who spent Tuesday referring phone calls for
The Fixer, instead of concentrating on year-end tax returns, because
the contact number printed with the popular local column was wrong.
Ask
the Menak Thakkar Dance Company. Information published last weekend
from the 2004 South Asian Heritage Festival calendar, instead of the
2005 calendar, had them performing the wrong work, on the wrong day, at
the wrong time. This year, the troupe is not even associated with the
festival.
What is the tolerance for error at the newspaper? Is there an argument for relativity and scale?
This section is also interesting:
…While
most readers have some empathy for the pressures on reporters and
editors, writing and publishing information on deadline is the business
that reporters and editors are in. (And that’s also a large part of the
fun.)As for life? No immunity there. Expect of neurosurgeons what you would have neurosurgeons expect of you.
Errors are corrosive. Corrosion is cumulative.
People read newspapers less frequently than they used to. Fewer young citizens choose to read papers at all.
Several
years ago newspaper editors feared that eroding credibility was eroding
circulation. The American Society of Newspaper Editors paid for a study
to find out why papers were losing credibility.
That research
identified six credibility killers. Number one? Mistakes. "Too many
factual errors, spelling and/or grammar mistakes."
That’s territory that writers and editors control.
Journalists
are professionals. Getting the facts straight is the minimum job
requirement. The best will agonize if they get a fact wrong, ask for a
correction as soon as possible and wince at the memory ever after.
(Sometime I’ll tell you about the time I turned a male hospital
administrator into a female.)
Will the newspaper ever be perfect?
Never.
Publishing
corrections is an effort to make amends, offer regret and slow the
corrosion. And the newsroom gets to start over and strive for
perfection again tomorrow…
