Tag Archives: fact checking

An Australian perspective on corrections

May 21, 2010 – 8:00 am

Thanks for being a regular reader. You can check out the award-winning Regret the Error book here.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation airs a regular program called Media Watch. I’ve highlighted the show’s work in the past — this was a particularly notable report — and a recent opinion piece by the show’s host is of interest. (Also see this related piece from the show.) Among other details, it offers information about how the program checks its scripts:

… My program scripts are combed through for most of Monday by a team of researchers. Even then, on several occasions our young web producer has spotted errors that somehow slipped through the net.

On the whole, the fact-checking system works pretty well. In a hundred-odd programs, we’ve made seven mistakes that we’re aware of – four of them, frankly, trivial. The three others resulted in on-air corrections as well as an acknowledgment of the error on our website.

In two of those, the problem was that the mistake wasn’t obvious. A good fact-checker has to look at a statement that looks right, and ask herself – could that be wrong?

For example, I said that public servant Godwin Grech denied on oath that he’d passed on the contents of an email to a reporter. Almost every journalist who was writing about the Grech affair made the same mistake, as did Malcolm Turnbull, multiple times. Media Watch didn’t think to check it on the day. Only afterwards did a viewer point out to us that most Senate committees, including the one at which Grech was giving evidence, don’t administer oaths.

On another occasion, we accused journalists of getting someone’s name wrong. They were using her second name, not her first. We should have thought to ask ourselves, “but does she prefer to use her second name?” We didn’t, but she did, and I got egg on my face.

All this is merely to say that complete accuracy is very difficult indeed to achieve. But my view has always been that up-front corrections and admissions of error increase the credibility of a publication, rather than diminishing it – so long, of course, as they are relatively rare (When I lived in Britain, The Guardian became so notorious for its frequent typos that Private Eye dubbed it ‘The Grauniad’. For those of us of a certain vintage, the name has stuck, irretrievably).

Last week’s Media Watch is a case in point. If Twitter is anything to go by – and I’m honestly not sure if it is or it isn’t – my ‘self-pwning’, as the Twitterati called it, went down a treat.

“Ha ha loved #mediawatch catches jonathon holmes,” (Name spelled wrong, @psychosophonist).

“Nicely self-pwned, @jonaholmesMW.” And many more.

My most celebrated predecessor, Stuart Littlemore, was notoriously reluctant to admit error. Even when the ABC’s Independent Complaints Review Panel found against the program, Littlemore contested the findings on-air. And he famously told the American media-watcher Steve Brill in 1997 that Media Watch had made no errors in the previous two years – a remark that prompted Brill to suggest that Littlemore might be the problem rather than the solution.

Of course, on-air corrections are anathema to broadcasters. Newspapers can bury them in small print, usually at the bottom left of page 2. But an on-air correction is in your face. In that respect, the internet has proved a blessing. Broadcasters like the ABC can put corrections on their webpage, and reckon they’ve done enough …

At Media Watch, we’ve been accused of being ‘the fun police’. I hope we’re not. I’m all for vigour and feistiness, humour and wit. But people shouldn’t be unfairly victimised for the amusement of others. And when the media makes mistakes, it should fess up – even without being forced to by lawyers or regulators.

When that happens, Media Watch won’t be needed any more. And pigs will fly.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Behind the scenes, Television | Also tagged , | View Comments

Quantifying the value of fact checking

May 7, 2010 – 9:35 am

The Canadian Magazines blog took note of the editor’s letter in a recent issue of Reader’s Digest Canada. That’s because editor-in-chief Robert Goyette took time to lay out some numbers that communicate the value of the magazine’s fact checking department:

“In this issue, for example, they checked approximately 9,000 facts, consulting 458 sources (including experts and people quoted) and corrected 312 factual errors”

For more on the value of fact checking, I suggest watching these videos of a speech given by Peter Canby of the New Yorker.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Behind the scenes, Magazines | Also tagged | View Comments

An inside look at fact checking at the New Yorker

April 15, 2010 – 8:00 am

Few things in the world of magazines are the subject of as much lore as the New Yorker’s fact checking department.

Many marvel over the magazine’s pedantic process for checking the facts in every article, caption, cartoon, poem and work of fiction. I dedicated a chapter of my book to fact checking, and recounted many of the amusing and apocryphal tales of checkers going far beyond the call of duty. For my research, I interviewed two fact checkers from the New Yorker, though only one spoke on the record. I had also approached Peter Canby, the head of the department and a senior editor at the magazine, for an interview. He politely declined.

Fortunately, we both delivered speeches at a recent fact checking conference in Germany, and I had the chance to speak with him. I also shot video of some of Canby’s interesting and amusing keynote speech. He began his talk by stating that it would be off the record, but I managed to get him to allow me to post a few excerpts. Three clips are below.

This one explains how they hire checkers, and the skills they look for:

Here’s some insight into what the magazine expects from its writers when it comes to fact checking:

Canby describes what he sees as the ultimate value of fact checking:


By Craig Silverman | Posted in Behind the scenes, Magazines, Regret Articles | Also tagged | View Comments

Top fact checkers and news accuracy experts gather in Germany

April 9, 2010 – 11:38 am

If you were to indulge in a bit of stereotyping and imagine the country most likely to host a conference about the pedantic discipline of fact checking, you’d probably arrive on one likely location: Germany.

And so it was that I spent the last weekend of March in Hamburg in the offices of the famous German weekly magazine Der Spiegel as a speaker and participant in a conference dedicated to fact checking. I was of course at a disadvantage in that I was one of only four English-speaking presenters; the rest of the conference took place in German.

My fellow North American presenters were Peter Canby, a senior editor at the New Yorker who heads up its fact checking department; Sarah Smith, managing editor of the New York Times Magazine and a former fact checker at the New Yorker; and Scott Maier, an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication and the leading newspaper accuracy researcher working today.

Nearly all of us who spoke in English couldn’t help but note what a pleasure it was to participate in, wonder of wonders, a conference about fact checking. God bless those crazy Germans. None of us were willing to offer the checker’s guarantee that it was the first ever such gathering on record, but it was the only one we could think of.

The real news of the conference, at least for us visitors, was the massive fact checking operation at Der Spiegel. The other bit of news was that Der Spiegel has a wonderfully outrageous cafeteria and meeting space. You can view all my photos on Flickr, but here’s a sample:

Can you imagine eating there every day? Just looking at it makes me want to buy some shirts with butterfly collars, and grow a moustache. But back to fact checking…

My colleagues from the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker were just as amazed as me to discover the German weekly has roughly 70 full-time people in its fact checking and research department, as well as others who work part-time. By comparison, the New Yorker has 16 checkers, including Canby, making it the major checking operation one of the major checking operations by North American standards. [Update/Correction April 9: Canby emailed to say Vanity Fair has over 20 checkers, making it larger than the New Yorker's department. That's why I struck the text above.]  You can read all about Der Spiegel’s checking in my new column for Columbia Journalism Review.

This slide, which was part of a presentation by the head of the magazine’s checking and research department, illustrated that Der Spiegel’s approach is to hire checkers who have specific expertise in different areas. Here’s a list of some of their checkers (to give you an idea, their medical expert/checker is a former physician):

Though Der Spiegel’s approach is unique, there is one way in which German fact checking is similar to what we have (or used to have)  in Canada and the US: it’s on the decline. Very few publications — someone at the conference estimated there are six in all of Germany — practice it. The tough economic times have resulted in the reduction of staff checkers, and those that are left are looking for new ways to justify their existence.

During my discussion with a Der Spiegel fact checker and the deputy head of the department, they said they are trying to use their internal database of information and sources to generate topic pages for the website. You can view the Angela Merkel topic page here.

For them, one way to ensure the survival of fact checking is to offer something other than checking and research. In short, they’re trying to generate content, not just verify it. The department is also hoping to save time and resources by moving away from paper-based checking and towards a digital workflow. If you wonder what I mean by paper-based, take a look at this slide showing an article that was worked on by a checker (click for larger):

In terms of English-language content, I shot a bit of video of Scott Maier’s talk about newspaper accuracy. He shared some of his research into newspaper accuracy in the United States. (I have more about this research here and here.) Here’s an excerpt:

One quote from Maier that stood out for me: “In America, journalists are better educated than ever,  yet the rate of error is higher than ever. Something is going wrong.” Also, here are photos of some of the slides that were part of Maier’s presentation. These will give you a quick and dirty look at his new data about Italian and Swiss newspaper (which has not yet been published). Click for larger:

Finally, for any German speakers out there, here’s a lengthy TV report about fact checking and the conference:

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Behind the scenes, Magazines, Newspapers, Regret Articles | Also tagged , , , , | View Comments

CJR report highlights how magazine websites handle online corrections, fact checking

March 1, 2010 – 3:10 pm

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, if not altogether negative in these areas.

Here’s a notable section (emphasis theirs):

Is online content, with its rapid turnaround requirement, held to the same standards as material that appears in print? In general, the answer is no. Over half (51%) of original content that appears on Web sites is either not copy-edited at all, or is copy-edited less rigorously than in print. Moreover, just under half (43%) of respondents say that there is either a lower standard for fact-checking online (35%) or no fact-checking at all (8%).

Web sites are more likely to have lower standards in these areas as their traffic rises, and when content decisions are made by independent Web editors.

These bullet points are also of note:

• Fact checking (excluding blogs) is less rigorous online than in print.
• Web sites with more than 50,000 visitors a month fact-check less rigorously than sites with less traffic.
• Fact-checking is more likely to be lax when independent Web editors are in charge of online content decisions.
• Many magazines Web sites correct errors without acknowledging the mistakes.
• Error correction rises with Web traffic and profitability, but methods of doing so are inconsistent.
• Error corrections rise when independent Web editors make content decisions, but independent Web editors are more likely than print counterparts or publishers to correct with no notice.

The report has some additional detail (below), but those are the headlines. Some thoughts:

  • Scrubbing is rampant. The vast majority of magazine websites are not publishing corrections for “typos or misspellings.” Also note that the report refers to these as “minor errors.” Well, not all typos and misspellings are equal. Yes, a typo that doesn’t change the meaning or reader’s understanding of a sentence (or introduce a factual error) can be fixed without requiring a correction. But what if a typo results in you reporting that Queen Elizabeth “lays up to 2,000 eggs per day”? Would they scrub that, too? We don’t really know. But once you are in the habit of scrubbing, it’s easy to start disappearing factual errors, which is unethical.
  • Fact checking is seen as a “nice to have” for online magazine content. It’s been relegated to luxury status. Within magazines, print and online are seen very differently, with print viewed as the place to invest in fact checking and copy editing.
  • One thing the report doesn’t make clear is what it means by fact checking. People who fact check for a living often say there’s no such thing as partial or “less rigorous” fact checking. Either check all of the facts, or don’t call it fact checking. So it would be useful to know how these respondents defined fact checking. Are professional fact checkers reviewing the online content? Or is an editor told to, for example, check the names and numbers before publication? It’s possible what respondents refer to as fact checking is, in fact, not in any way related to what traditional magazine fact checking looks like.

More fact checking data from the report:

Fact-checking (excluding blogs) is less rigorous online than in print for 35%
of respondents (Fig. 19).
• 8% do not fact-check print or online content.
• 8% do not fact-check online-only content.
• 27% say online-only content is fact-checked, but less rigorously than print
content.
• 57% use the same fact-checking process for online-only and print content.
In total, 84% of magazines surveyed do at least some fact-checking of their online-
only content and 92% fact-check their print content.
Figure 19: Fact-checking
Which best describes how online-only content is fact-checked?

More about corrections:

Many magazines Web sites correct errors without acknowledging the
mistakes (Fig. 23).
• 87% correct minor errors, such as typos or misspellings, with no indication to readers.
• 45% correct factual errors with no indication to readers.
• 37% correct factual errors and append an editor’s note detailing the nature of the error to the content where the mistake appeared.
• 6% leave major factual errors in as they originally appeared in the content, but add an editor’s note at the point of the error.
• 1% note all errors in a special section of the Web site.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Magazines, Online, Regret Articles | Also tagged , , , | View Comments

FCU: Fact Checkers Unit*

July 21, 2009 – 10:23 am

Who knew magazine fact checking could be so funny? Check this video from Funny Or Die — it includes Bill Murray:

Thanks, Kim!

*Correction: I somehow managed to misspell the word "checkers" in the headline. It has been corrected, and I also smacked myself in the head. Thanks, Jake!

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Online | Also tagged | View Comments

PolitiFact’s guide to fact checking

June 30, 2009 – 8:00 am

YouTube recently unveiled its Reporters’ Center, a library of videos offering advice about a variety of aspects of journalism. "The YouTube Reporters’ Center is a new resource to help you learn more about how to report the news," according to the site. "It features some of the nation’s top journalists and news organizations sharing instructional videos with tips and advice for better reporting."

One of the videos features the editor of PolitiFact offering some good, basic advice about fact checking. 

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Behind the scenes | View Comments

NYT Mag Editor’s Note details lapses in reporting, fact checking

April 13, 2009 – 8:00 am

nytimesmagYou’d expect a magazine to exercise extra caution when publishing an article about a “vending machine for crows.” It’s a strange idea, not to mention one that was developed for a master’s thesis in a “Interactive Telecommunications Program.” Because the story doesn’t fall into the category of common knowledge, it requires particularly careful editing and fact checking.

The New York Times Magazine fact checks all of its articles, but the process broke down when it came to the vending machine story. On Sunday, the Times published a lengthy Editor’s Note to explain the reporting, editing and fact checking errors. The Note:

An article in the Year in Ideas issue on Dec. 14, 2008, reported on Josh Klein, whose master’s thesis for New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program proposed “a vending machine for crows” that would enable the birds to exchange coins for peanuts. The article reported that beginning in June 2008, Klein tested the machine at the Binghamton Zoo, that the crows learned how to use it and that after a month the crows were actually scouring the ground for loose change.
The Times has since learned that Klein was never at the Binghamton Zoo, and there were no crows on display there in June 2008. He performed these experiments with captive crows in a Brooklyn apartment; he told the reporter about the Brooklyn crows but implied that his work with them was preliminary to the work at the zoo. Asked to explain these discrepancies, Klein now says he and the reporter had a misunderstanding about the zoo.
The reporter never called the zoo in Binghamton to confirm. And while the fact-checker did discuss the details with Klein, he did not call the zoo, as required under The Times’s fact-checking standards. In addition, the article said that Klein was working with graduate students at Cornell University and Binghamton University to study how wild crows make use of his machine, which does exist. Klein did get a professor at Binghamton to help him try it out twice in Ithaca, with assistance from a Binghamton graduate student, and it was not a success. Corvid experts who have since been interviewed have said that Klein’s machine is unlikely to work as intended.
These discrepancies were pointed out to The Times by the Binghamton professor several weeks after the article was published; this editors’ note was delayed for additional reporting. These details should have been discovered during the reporting and editing process. Had that happened, the article would not have been published.

The original story came in at just under 250 words; the Editor’s Note is close to 100 words longer. That’s a sign something was seriously wrong with the article. In the end, as the Note concludes, the story should never have made it into print. Even if Klein and the writer did have a “misunderstanding,” the fact checker should have discovered the truth and alerted the editor, who then should have killed the piece.

Magazine-style fact checking is currently journalism’s best system to prevent factual errors.  However, this example demonstrates that it’s far from perfect. Errors made by the source and writer were not caught by the editor and also escaped notice by the fact checker. The mistakes circumvented a process designed to catch and fix them.

Then, after publication, Klein chose not to bring the mistakes to the Times’ attention; it was up to a professor with a slight connection to the story to reveal the mistake.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Magazines, Major Errors | Also tagged , , | View Comments

Fact checking needs to be saved before it can become a marketing tool

March 13, 2009 – 10:43 am

Allan Britnell, a Canadian freelance writer and fact-checker, has written an article suggesting that magazines should make a point of telling readers about their dedication to fact checking. Writing for Masthead Online, a website that reports on the Canadian magazine industry, Britnell proposes “an industry-wide campaign to promote fact checking” to readers:

One of the issues facing our industry is how to justify our relevance with a media-saturated audience that, increasingly, has grown up never having had to pay for content (music, movies, or reading material)… We – or at least, some of us – already have a built-in credibility process. Let’s let our readers know about it. To my mind, having the time to fact-check copy (and, of course, actually making the effort to do it) could be what makes magazines worth paying for, even when everyone else is giving away their content for free.
I propose an industry-wide campaign to promote fact checking. In short, we’d be letting readers know that because it’s been cross-checked, the content of a magazine is likely more reliable than what they’ll find in most websites, newspapers, or books.
The cornerstone of the campaign would be a check-mark logo that participating magazines could put on their covers (along the lines of Magazines Canada’s “Genuine Canadian Magazine” icon). A coordinated campaign of house ads, perhaps under the tagline, “We only write what’s right,” would explain in more detail what the logo – and fact checking – means. To promote the campaign’s launch, a coinciding series of editorials could further explain the process, and mention the names of other participating publications.

Magazines that have a strict fact checking process should definitely do more to communicate the value of this layer of verification. However, any “industry-wide campaign to promote fact checking” would have to begin as a campaign aimed at magazines. The reality is that fact checkers are a dying breed.

Only a handful of Canadian magazines use them, and checkers are being culled at an alarming rate in the United States. When layoffs hit, fact checkers are among the first to go. The magazine industry won’t be able to launch a credible campaign aimed at consumers unless it does a better job of ensuring that fact checking doesn’t become a luxury that only the biggest and best-funded magazines can afford.

To be fair, Britnell acknowledges that magazines aren’t pursuing a uniform checking process:

Obviously, a set of standards would need to be established. Does double-checking the spelling of source names and spot-checking the odd factoid count? To me, no. I would argue that substantively checking all editorial content should be the benchmark…

That’s a fair benchmark, but it will take a lot of work to make a significant number of magazines meet the standard.

While researching a chapter about fact-checking for the Regret the Error book, it became clear that I would have to dedicate just as many words to the demise of checking as I would to telling its history and sharing amusing anecdotes about checkers who went far beyond the call of duty. In the end, the chapter was called “THE BIRTH (AND SLOW DEATH) OF MAGAZINE FACT CHECKING.”

Here’s one relevant passage:

Magazines have always billed themselves as an authoritative voice. These days, that kind of quality is even more important, if only to cut through the massive daily assault of information and misinformation… If magazines do manage to hang on to rigorous fact checking, despite the time and expense involved, they’ll have a fighting chance of providing that voice. Readers, who show an almost filial loyalty to their favorite mags, deserve no less.
In today’s media environment it seems almost negligent for a magazine to eliminate its fact-checking department.

And here’s another to help remind us of the importance of fact-checking:

In September 1997, Canadian Business moved from a monthly schedule to publishing every two weeks. With its increased frequency, the magazine attempted to introduce a light check: Only things such as names and dates would be checked in every piece. The light check lasted only a few weeks before the magazine went back to the old system.
“They had this really stupid idea,” Pat Ireland, an experienced copy editor and checker at Canadian Business, said after the episode. “The editors would supposedly go over what needed checking and they’d mark it for you. Well, they never did, and editors, in my experience, don’t have any idea of what should be checked. You check everything. You never know what you’re leaving out.”
The magazine’s decision to bring back a full fact-check paid dividends at the 2006 Canadian National Magazine Awards. “I want to take a moment to acknowledge some people in the business who don’t get enough credit,” said Canadian Business staffer Matthew McClearn as he stood onstage to accept his gold medal for investigative reporting. “We call them associate editors at Canadian Business. You probably know them as fact checkers.”

Interestingly, the story of Canadian Business’ brief flirtation with the “light check” first appeared in Masthead.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Behind the scenes, Magazines | View Comments

CJR columns: an argument in favor of checklists, a look at homegrown errorists

February 6, 2009 – 4:35 pm

cjr2After releasing my free Regret the Error Accuracy Checklist earlier this week (download your copy here), I devoted my latest CJR online column to the subject of checklists. This column offers background on why checklists have proven useful in so many different industries and professions. I examine why they work for journalists, and why we don’t use them. My column from the week before is a look at one man in Illinois who spends his mornings spotting errors in his local paper. Excerpts are below.

From today’s column (click on the headline for the full text):

Checklist Charlie

In 1935, Boeing Corporation almost went bankrupt after its Model 299 long-range bomber literally crashed and burned during a U.S. Army flight competition. Major Ployer P. Hill, the pilot, and one other crew member died in the crash. As a result, the Army contract went to a competing company, causing major financial difficulties for Boeing.
As a consolation, the Army ordered a few Model 299s for further testing. The question was how to fly them safely. The New Yorker’s Atul Gawande writes that the Army eventually “came up with an ingeniously simple approach: they created a pilot’s checklist, with step-by-step checks for takeoff, flight, landing, and taxiing.”
“With the checklist in hand, the pilots went on to fly the Model 299 a total of 1.8 million miles without one accident,” according to Gawande. The Army eventually ordered thousands of the aircraft, which became known as the B-17.
Gawande’s December 2007 story is a paean to the checklist, one of the simplest and most effective error-reduction tools. Checklists have been proven to work for pilots, doctors, nurses, and even people working at a nuclear power stations. For example, the use of a World Health Organization surgical safety checklist helped reduce inpatient deaths following operations by 40 percent, according to a studyNew England Journal of Medicine. published in the
Checklists also work for journalists. We just don’t use them …

From my January 30th column:

Homegrown Errorists

The package arrived two weeks ago, a bulging manila envelope with a return address in Decatur, Illinois. Inside was a mass of paper with a polite letter placed on top.
“Dear Mr. Silverman,” it began, “you have published a book on errors found in journalism and have a website devoted to the subject.” The writer, Robert S. Reed, continued on for two pages:

As a subscriber to the Herald & Review in Decatur Illinois, I have seen hundreds of errors in newspaper articles in addition to errors in the photo captions and the headlines/sub-headings. Most are misspelled words, missing words, extra words, wrong verb tenses, and, in some cases, factual inaccuracies.
Two of the articles from 2008 are attached to illustrate my point … I am also attaching 82 photo captions that appeared in the Decatur Herald & Review in 2008. All contain errors of one type or another. The corrections are indicated in ink. Also enclosed are 35 copies of headlines and sub-headings.

The more than 100 clippings were roughly an inch thick, and Reed was as good as his word. Each page correctly noted a copy editing or factual error from the paper. Red ink was everywhere, and in all the right places. The collection represented hours of work, not to mention the time spent photocopying them for delivery to me.
Some may wonder why anyone would choose to dedicate this amount of time to cataloging the errors in their local paper. But it’s no surprise to me at all. I’ve seen it before. (Plus, I’ve dedicated the last four years to reading hundreds of thousands of corrections and errors. I’m in no position to judge.) …

By Craig Silverman | Posted in CJR Column, Regret Articles, accuracy tips | Also tagged , | View Comments

Announcing the Regret the Error paperback and a free accuracy checklist

February 4, 2009 – 12:36 pm

rte-paperback-cover-web11

This week marks the release of the US paperback edition of the Regret the Error book. Order your copy here.

In addition to a lower price, the paperback includes a new introduction by me and the best corrections and apologies of 2007-08.  We also corrected the errors identified in the hardcover. (Read and subscribe to my book corrections here.) Plus, the cover makes note of the fact that the book won the Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism from the National Press Club in Washington.

Free Accuracy Checklist

To celebrate the release of the paperback, I’m offering a free download of a special Regret the Error accuracy checklist. Reporters can use the checklist to help achieve accuracy in their work. Have a look:

checklist

Instructions

  • Download the PDF file.
  • Print it off on a 4×6 piece of photo-quality paper. (Regular paper will also work.)
  • Laminate it.
  • Use a dry-erase marker (the finer the point, the better) to check off items as you complete them.

I recommend the photo paper, lamination and a dry erase marker because this process will enable you to use the same checklist over and over. Just keep it at your desk and reuse it for every story. Better yet, stick it to the corner of you monitor so it’s always in front of you. If photo paper/lamination isn’t your style, you can just print off a new checklist for each story. The laminated version is better because it saves time and paper, but it’s your choice.

This checklist is divided into four sections:

  1. At the top is space to write the name of the story you’re working on. Underneath that are a few lines where you can list your sources for the story.
  2. A section that lists a number of behaviors that will help you while reporting, such as “Ask sources to spell name & title.” Check off these items as you work on the story.
  3. A section that lists ten different things to check when you’re finished writing the story. Again, check them of as you complete each task.
  4. A section where you can write in story-specific items to check. For example, if a story contains medical terms and concepts, you would write them on these lines to make sure you check them before submitting the story.

Why a checklist?

Checklists help reporters and editors increase their level of accuracy. Checklists are also used in other industries and professions, such as medicine. Train yourself to use one, and you’ll make fewer factual errors. Seriously, it’s one of the easiest things a journalist can do to prevent factual errors.

This checklist is primarily aimed at reporters, but sections three and four could just as easily be used by editors. If you have any edits or suggestions for improving the checklist, please let me know. I’d also love to receive testimonials from people who use it.

Enjoy!

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Regret Articles, accuracy tips | Also tagged , | View Comments

Correcting the checkers, part two

October 17, 2008 – 8:00 am

In an Oct. 15 story fact-checking the presidential candidates’ debate, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that presidential candidate Barack Obama overstated the proportion of American households that would see tax cuts under his economic plan.
The Democrat specified that he was talking about “working Americans,” and the figure he cited – 95 percent – is essentially correct, according to the Tax Policy Center, which calculated the figures. Link

Previous example here.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Wire service | Also tagged | View Comments

The fact-checking prowess of Mark Powell

September 23, 2008 – 8:00 am

A passage from Jesse Froehling’s story (spotted by Romenesko) in the Sept. 17 edition of Seattle Weekly brought back memories:

Mark Powell finds mistakes everywhere he looks. National monuments, scholarly texts, museums, The Washington Post, The New York Times: All have drawn the attention of Powell’s rabid, error-spotting eye. Powell will leave you seven-minute voicemails about these errors. When you call him back, he’ll tell you how good he is at finding them–in great detail. When after two and a half hours you finally manage to hang up the phone, you’ll vow never to speak with Mark Powell again. Then he’ll call, and you’ll listen. Because the thing is, Mark Powell is always right.

In 2006 and 2007, Powell and I had several long conversations about his fact-checking hobby. He had been spending his spare time spotting errors in the Washington Post and sending his findings to the paper. Powell had pages and pages of notes, some of which he sent to me. He also told me the Post had cancelled his subscription. (Powell forwarded me emails from the circulation department that appeared to confirm this.)

Powell undeniably has a talent for fact-checking. He demonstrated this time and again. We spoke on an off for a few months and also discussed the possibility of having him write a column or two for this site. I wanted him to produce some new checking and write about it here; he felt I should publish his previous work. It ended with me trying to convince him to start his own website. I also wrote about him in the Regret the Error book. Here’s an excerpt:

In October 2006, I was introduced to one dedicated independent fact-checker via e-mail. The subject line of the message seemed spam-like enough: “Perhaps the most important inquiry you could get.” I came close to deleting it before having a quick read.
“I’m just getting familiar with your site,” it read. “Bravo for highlighting the errors, egregious and/or just silly, that big papers make and admit. But at my first glance, you don’t seem to deal in a yet-more-important issue: the uncorrected errors constantly and permanently disinforming the public.”
The writer, Mark Powell, then outlined his months of work fact checking one U.S. newspaper. His conclusion was:

THIS IS THE BIGGEST UN-/UNDERREPORTED SCANDAL IN U.S. JOURNALISM. While the chattering class ever harps on so-and-so’s political bias, real and imagined, sheer topical and journalistic INCOMPETENCE is destroying print’s last hope in the electronic age, viz. acknowledged credibility/authority superiority.

Powell lives in Virginia and his paper of choice is the Washington Post. As far as he is concerned, the paper’s corrections “represent a very tiny fraction of the paper’s ‘correctable’ errors. Fact is nearly none of the thousand-odd errors I’ve cataloged—probably less than 2 percent— were ever corrected.”
… [Powell] was as focused and dedicated an external fact-checker as I’ve come across, and no doubt a thorn in the Post’s side since he regularly e-mailed editors with his findings. I told him he struck me as the kind of person who would have been well suited to the job of proofreader. Too bad it no longer exists.

The Seattle Weekly article is, as far as I’m concerned, an accurate portrayal of Powell and his work. It details his fact-checking prowess, the aggressive way he demands corrections (and jobs at newspapers), and his colourful way of speaking and writing. It’s nice to hear that Powell’s still doing his thing, even if the targets of his work are (understandably) frustrated with him. From the piece:

… Furthermore, Powell has been such a thorn in The Washington Post‘s side that the paper has canceled his subscription—for life, he claims. And in late August, Powell wrote to Greg Brock, senior editor in charge of corrections at The New York Times. In his communiqué, Powell points out errors in three film reviews, and then essentially asks for a job: “Whether as fulltime editor or some type of outside associate, I want to find a place, if such exists, where facts, performance and principle outrank politics and personalities—where the best at something can be valued and rewarded for being that, which advances the outlet’s mission. I’m advised there is no such place, including the Times. Recent years’ general news indicates you’re in worse shape in important ways than the Post. But I won’t know till I probe there.”

Brock wrote back via e-mail, asking Powell to “take a deep breath and listen,” noting that Powell’s conduct was hurting his cause. “My own assessment—after hearing from you so far—is that you are undercutting yourself,” said Brock.

On Aug. 25, Powell responded: “It may not make you tremble, but with more editors in both America and Canada now asking me for diverse episodes from my trail, you can bet I’ll be showing some clip including this sorry little episode about my first glances at the New York Times. In fact, I think the three for three start, and your attitude in reply as soon as it was clear that I really did back up my words, will be a useful vignette.”

I’ll note that Greg Brock and I have met in person and also once spoke at the same event. Brock spends a good part of his day communicating with the public and tracking down corrections. He’s used to taking heat from a variety of people and is remarkably good-natured and professional about it. But, obviously, Powell’s not your average reader.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Regret Articles | Also tagged , | View Comments

BBC Trust calls on BBC.co.uk to improve fact checking, updating of articles

April 25, 2008 – 8:00 am

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 Congressman Joseph P Kennedy II’s marriage to Sheila Rauch.
During the complaints procedure, the online news team conceded to oversimplifying the story and admitted that this could mislead the reader.

From the committee’s findings:

  • The article had been fundamentally flawed and the complainant had provided useful and accurate information to assist the web team in correcting the story.
  • The web team should have acted more quickly in its responses to the complainant to ensure the story was corrected sooner than it was.
  • The wider issue of sourcing and checking stories for the news website was something for BBC management to address.
  • [The committee] would write to BBC management to request it reviews its policies as to the sourcing and checking of material facts within articles prior to publication on the BBC website.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Behind the scenes, Ombudsmen, Online | Also tagged | View Comments
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