Posts Tagged ‘error prevention’

Tips from the New York Times for avoiding misspelled names

I recently blogged some proofreading tips from the New York Times, and now the paper is back with some new advice. This time the topic is misspelled names, which has long been a problem for the paper. Here are the latest stats on the Times and its name issue: My colleague Greg Brock reports that [...]

Wash. Post ombudsman calls on paper to improve copy editing; what happened to Post’s new editing system?

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 [...]

#ONA11: B.S. Detection for Online Journalists

I’m at the Online News Association Conference in Boston today. At 2:15 p.m. the Huffington Post’s Mandy Jenkins and I will lead a workshop, B.S. Detection for Online Journalists. Here’s the overview of what we’ll be covering: Accuracy is fundamental to what we do, but it’s a challenge to verify information when it flows at [...]

Worth reading: ‘There’s No Problem!’ Newsrooms in Denial About Rampant Errors’

This post, “There’s No Problem!’ Newsrooms in Denial About Rampant Errors,” from MediaBugs executive director Scott Rosenberg is in reply to this post from Jonathan Stray. Together, they encompass much of the information you need to get a good understanding of newspaper accuracy and some of the failures of correction. So not just worth reading [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Kevin Bottrell

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Michael Moon

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Amanda McAlpine

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Mandy Jenkins

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Emma Jacobs

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Madeleine Cummings

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Lisa McLendon

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Eric Borer

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: John X. Miller

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Wendy Stonecash

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Sean Driscoll

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Heidi Hallett

I recently made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. You [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist: Annie Labrecque

Last week I made an offer to my fellow journalists: if you create a personal accuracy checklist, I'll send you a free copy of my book. Checklists are the best tool for preventing factual errors. I want more of us in the press to use them, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. [...]

Show me your accuracy checklist and win a prize

I owe Steve Buttry a big favor. In October I went to Washington to attend the Online News Association's conference. Buttry, who is the director of community engagement at TBD, invited me to give a presentation about errors and accuracy at American University. This was part of TBD and AU's series of blogging workshops. You [...]

New column for BusinessJournalism.org: Checklists and Error Logs

Like people who can’t help asking for health advice from any doctor they meet, journalists who recognize me as the Regret the Error guy usually have two questions on their mind. I view these queries as a reward for spending six years researching, tracking and reporting on press errors and accuracy. First, they want to [...]

Speed versus accuracy in journalism: towards a new debate

Today’s edition of my weekly column in Columbia Journalism Review looks at the issue of speed versus accuracy in journalism. I hope you’ll take a moment and read it, as it relates to this post. Think of the column and post as branches on the same tree. My column looks at the issue in terms [...]

NYT public editor addresses errors made in Cronkite article; some basic advice for preventing errors

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt has weighed in on the paper’s recent, error-riddled story about Walter Cronkite. The story, written by television critic Alessandra Stanley, resulted in two corrections, one of which was for seven mistakes. I wrote about the mistakes, and Stanley’s history of error, in a recent column for Columbia Journalism [...]

What IT security can teach us about accuracy

Bruce Schneier, one of the leading thinkers in IT security, recently wrote a column for Wired.com in which he uses the example of corrupt NBA referee Tim Donaghy to examine systems that suffer from single points of failure. The same concept directly relates to journalism and accuracy. What sorts of systems — IT, financial, NBA [...]