When should a news organization correct or remove archival content? Where should online corrections be placed? How should readers be encouraged to report mistakes and request corrections? These are some of the common questions I’m asked about online corrections. I think a lot of news organizations continue to struggle with them, and to look for [...]
On the heels of the Daily Mail starting a new corrections column, Trinity Mirror papers the Daily Mail, Birmingham Mail, South Wales Echo, Western Mail and Huddersfield Examiner announced they too would be using page two to display corrections. Here’s the note to readers from the Mail: AT THE Birmingham Mail, we pride ourselves in [...]
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. [...]
In a positive move for U.K. tabloids, the Daily Mail started publishing a regular corrections column. Sister papers the Mail on Sunday and Metro are doing the same. Here’s the first column from the Sunday paper. It included this introductory text: The Mail on Sunday strives for complete accuracy in every article, but it is [...]
Karen Rothmyer, public editor of the Star of Nairobi, Kenya, dedicated a recent column to the issue of corrections. Specifically, the issue is that her paper seems to prefer to not publish them. It sometimes publishes a corrective article when a mistake is made, or it will occasionally go into online articles and scrub away [...]
Poynter’s Steve Myers today published an article that suggests Reuters learned a couple of important lessons after it published a remarkably wrong David Cay Johnston column. Myers reports that the news organization will soon implement a new way to handle retractions, an update that better adapts to the digital world. .. A notice will be [...]
… It has been my experience, after reporting from many locations around the world and working with others who do, that errors are more likely when covering foreign events and topics, as misspellings, misunderstandings, inaccurate references to professional titles, and poor or incorrect translations from other languages can lead to mistakes. Editors and fact-checkers in [...]
A recent edition of my weekly column for Columbia Journalism Review featured a Q&A with PCC director Stephen Abell. He told me that the organization recently set up a working group to come up with guidance regarding online corrections and apologies. The guidelines were published today, and here are the notable sections: The starting point [...]
We’re entering one of those fertile, exciting periods when the fundamentals of publishing are, yet again, undergoing massive revisions thanks to new technology. This time the trigger takes the form of the growing understanding that our consumption of news and information — still in mid-transition from print and broadcast to digital platforms — is migrating [...]
Stinky Journalism noted an interesting article by the U.K.'s Press Gazette. It reported that the Press Complaints Commission, the self-regulatory body for U.K. media, will play a bigger role in determining where publications place corrections and apologies resulting from PCC findings. From the story: The committee that oversees the Editors' Code of Practice to which [...]
… Most newspapers have longstanding policies on how errors are corrected in print, but if you ask editors and reporters about online corrections in their own newsrooms, you likely will get as many answers as people you ask. … Mobile sites and apps for smartphones and devices like the iPad bring yet another dimension to [...]
I forgot to add a link to my Columbia Journalism Review column from last week, which provides journalists with a wealth of advice and resources for online verification. An excerpt: Content Analysis Author – Is someone identified as the author of the site or article? Google them, look for a personal website. If their byline [...]
Slate published an interesting article by Jeremy Singer-Vine about “What the politics Web site [Politico] deletes from its articles without telling anyone.” From the piece: … How often does Politico, in the din of the news cycle, make significant changes to its copy after publishing it—without telling readers? Part of the answer, of course, depends [...]
I previously wrote about MediaBugs, a Knight Foundation-funded project that I’m occasionally helping out as an unpaid advisor. It’s been up and running for a few weeks and the people running it — Scott Rosenberg and Mark Follman — are coming to grips with the challenge of finding the right person to listen to a [...]
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 [...]
I had a great time speaking to several classes at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University last week. (Thanks again to Dan Gillmor for bringing me there.) I gave my usual spiel about errors and corrections and all of the other topics I tend to cover. But one [...]
Columbia Journalism Review today released a major report about magazine websites. (Disclosure: I write a weekly column for CJR, but had no involvement in this report.) You can read a brief intro and download the full PDF here. The report includes some interesting information about fact checking, copy editing and corrections. The results are mixed, [...]
When I put this Washington Post correction on the site on December 4*, I had no idea it would end up being such a remarkable item: A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone [...]
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 [...]
Reuters has made its internal Handbook for Journalists available to the public via the Internet. It posted the full document online and Dean Wright, Reuters’ global editor of ethics, innovation and news standards, wrote about it yesterday. (Romenesko spotted Wright’s post.) Here’s what Wright says about the Handbook: The handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists [...]
By John E. McIntyre A reader of my column on how publications deal with corrections (“Daddy, where do corrections come from?") addressed a point that regularly bedevils editors: Should corrections identify who made the error? The issue has been described at some length in the article “Who takes the fall for errors?” by Kathy English, [...]
The Washington Times made an embarrassing mistake on its website last week. This picture pretty much speaks for itself: Yes, those are the Obama kids. No, they weren’t involved in the story. After being spotted by one blog, the image quickly spread. Some people said it was an example of the Times’ right-wing bias. The [...]
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller participated in an online Q&A with the public this week. Some of his answers touched on accuracy, credibility and corrections. Here’s one relevant exchange: Q. You’ve been the face of The Times through the very roughest times for The Times. Anything you regret? — C.D. Monroe, Washington … [...]
I’m a bit behind in posting links to my weekly column for Columbia Journalism Review online. Here are pointers to three recent columns, with excerpts. My full column archive is online here. Today’s column: A Rare Peek at Why Errors Occur Last Sunday’s New York Times was a treasure trove of accuracy-related information, and I [...]
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 [...]
