Tag Archives: quality revolution

Today’s NY Times includes barrage of corrections

January 10, 2010 – 3:05 pm

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The folks at the NYTPicker, a blog that reports on the New York Times, took special notice of the corrections page in today’s paper. It is worth highlighting, as the Time published 36 corrections. (I recently profiled the NYTPicker for PBS MediaShift.)

Sunday is the biggest day for Times corrections. It’s when the paper corrects errors from the previous Sunday’s paper, which includes many special sections, as well the magazines. But, yes, 36 is a high number. From the NYTPicker:

It may or may not be a record — we don’t have the energy to plow through more than 100 years of back issues — but today’s NYT corrections column is large as any we’ve been able to find in recent memory. And it’s hard not to see the surge as a reflection of what happens to a newspaper that has lost more than 200 editorial employees to buyouts and layoffs in the last two years.

Other papers have seen an increase in corrections in the wake of layoffs and buyouts, but it’s tough to say if the number of corrections published by the Times has been on the rise. The paper uses an internal database to keep track of its corrections, so it has the data. (It’s also important to note that the number of corrections is not the same as the number of errors.)

This is the pick of the litter from today’s Times:

An article on Nov. 22 about the Dutch province of Friesland included a number of errors.

In reference to Friesland’s history, it was the feudal lords — not the Romans — who had no success conquering the Frisians in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Frisians were mostly Germanic people, not just Saxons, who had migrated there in the fourth and fifth centuries — not the first century. Friesland was considered an autonomous and proud region up to the 1500s — not “through” the Middle Ages. And it fell to the Habsburg Empire — not to the Holy Roman Empire — at the beginning of the 16th century. Also, while Friesland’s agrarian landscape is indeed dotted with terps, mounds measuring from a few to 20 feet high, terps are also found in the North Sea marshlands, encompassing parts of Holland, Germany and Denmark; the mounds are not found just in current-day Friesland.

Of the towns whose squares and alleys the writer explored, it was Stavoren — not Hindeloopen — that had a more prosperous seaport than Amsterdam up until the 1400s, not the 1700s. And the neighboring towns Stavoren and Hindeloopen, in addition to having a thriving trade with Scandinavia, also had a robust trade with the Baltic countries — but not with Russia.

A reader pointed out the errors in an e-mail message on Nov. 29; this correction was delayed for research.

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

Wash Post ombud links loss of copy editors to increase in errors

July 7, 2009 – 8:00 am

washpost4Just 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 wealth of seasoned veterans, many of them editors. Those journalists not only wrote headlines and captions. They also scrutinized the work of reporters — correcting spelling, straightening out syntax, double-checking facts — before publication.
With fewer people to do that now, less of that important work gets done, and the result is more published errors.

Yesterday, the ombudsman of the Washington Post wrote basically the same column:

…Growing numbers of readers are contacting the ombudsman to complain about typos and small errors.

"As a virtually lifelong subscriber, I am disheartened by the increasingly poor quality of the editing of The Post," wrote Richard Murphy of Alexandria. If typos can’t be caught by a spell-checker, "then The Post should restore a couple of copy editor positions. You have cut that staff too much."

The Post’s copy editors are among the best I’ve worked with during nearly four decades in the newspaper business. But they’ve been badly depleted by staff cuts as the money-losing paper struggles to control costs. Those who remain are stretched thin while The Post expands to a 24-hour news operation in print and online.

Between early 2005 and mid-2008, the number of full-time copy editors dropped from about 75 to 43 through buyouts or voluntary departures. It has declined further since then, but Post managers won’t provide precise figures beyond saying that six took a recent buyout offer. The need is so critical that most are being hired back on contract through at least the end of the year, and part-timers are taking up some of the slack.

Copy editors are the unsung heroes of newsrooms. Unknown to the public, and often underappreciated by their colleagues, they’re the last line of defense against a correction or, worse, a libel suit…

"By definition, you’ll see more errors when there’s reduced staffing," said Bill Walsh, the A-section copy desk chief. On a typical weeknight a few years ago, Walsh said, the three copy desks handling national, foreign and business news could rely on perhaps 20 editors. Those desks have since been combined into one desk, headed by Walsh. Today, he said, "there are some shifts where I’m looking at seven or eight people total."…

These papers are by no means the only ones experiencing a spike in errors due to the loss of bodies on the copy desk. Adding to the problem is the fact that the move online means papers are churning out more content than ever before. Yet copy editors — and magazine fact checkers — are being shown the door.

Carl Sessions Stepp examined how some newsrooms are coping with this challenge is his recent article, "The Quality-Control Quandary,” It’s a must-read. I fear, though, that few organizations are rethinking their quality control process and means of verification. They’re just trying to do more with less. It’s a recipe for disaster.

I looked at this issue in a recent essay I wrote for Harvard’s Niemen Neiman Reports:

For more than 100 years, one of the most recognizable slogans in journalism has been “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Lately, The New York Times motto is being challenged by the familiar phrase, “do more with less.” This new saying was, in fact, the theme of the World Editors Forum scheduled for March, but the event had to be cancelled “due to the impact of the global financial downturn on newspaper companies.”

News organizations are shedding employees. Those that remain are expected to pick up the slack and also push ahead with digital initiatives. Included in the exodus are valuable copyeditors—the people in whose encyclopedic brains reside a lot of what prevents errors from surfacing in stories. The few, the proud—and disappearing—magazine fact checkers are also being told to grab their World Almanacs and Book of Facts and move along.

Accuracy is a huge journalistic challenge. When reporters are asked to take on more work while the newsroom’s same fallible processes and error-prone technologies remain in place, the result will undoubtedly be a further downward slide in quality. More errors will be followed by more apologies and more corrections. And this is happening at a critical time for journalism—a time when consumers are being asked by journalists using digital media to lend support to their newsgathering mission…

 

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

Why the Washington Times accuracy memo is bad for corrections

May 19, 2009 – 1:23 pm

The Washington Times made an embarrassing mistake on its website last week. This picture pretty much speaks for itself:

washtimesobama

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 Times spoke up, publishing a story to explain the error:

…Executive Editor John Solomon said The Times published the story in its print edition without a photo, then editors sent it to the Web platform without an attached photo.
He said The Times’ automated “news themes” engine, constructed to match related content to the Web site, paired the Associated Press photo of the Obama daughters to the bylined story. An online editor later spotted the photo and added a short caption.
“That editor should have removed the photo from the site but did not recognize the inappropriate mismatching,” Mr. Solomon said. “As soon as we learned about the problem, we detached the photo from the story. We regret that this technical glitch led to an inappropriate pairing of the photo with the story and we’ve taken steps technologically and in our editorial process to try to avoid such an episode in the future.”
“We also hope this glitch does not distract from the important and well reported subject of the story: the crisis of school violence in one of the nation’s largest cities.”

The lede of the above story blamed the error on a “technical glitch.” Well, that’s partly true. But this error also occurred because of a lack of editorial oversight. The photo was automatically matched with the story, but someone should have approved it before the article went live. So, yes, a technical glitch. But also a process problem. Solomon seems to acknowledge this when he says that “we’ve taken steps technologically and in our editorial process to try to avoid such an episode in the future.”

Solomon also reacted to the incident by sending a memo to staff. It ostensibly reinforces the importance of accuracy, but I worry that it could result in Times staffers doing more to conceal mistakes. Here’s a relevant passage:

1. Any reporter or editor who makes an error in a story that requires a published correction must submit a letter to the Executive Editor and Managing Editor explaining the mistake and what corrective actions were taken. These letters will be placed in your permanent personnel file.

This sends the message to the newsroom that it’s better to conceal an error than correct it. I know that’s not what Solomon meant to say, but his policy will encourage some staffers to do everything they can to hide a mistake. After all, leaving an error uncorrected means they won’t have to own up to it in an embarrassing letter — a letter that will go in their personnel file.

Solomon is right to want to track errors and understand their cause. But his process is all about punishment and shame; it’s not about learning from mistakes. These letters of confession go into a person’s personnel file. Sure, that provides information for their annual review. But what about the organization as a whole? This information should be collected in a corrections database that helps the newsroom track and understand the most common causes of error. Don’t shame your staff with a high school-esque process that’s all about letters and permanent records. It will only make people want to hide their errors. That’s bad for the newsroom and bad for readers.

The third item in Solomon’s memo addresses the issue of training. I like that the paper is introducing an accuracy training program. But he’s presented it like a remedial class for bad reporters and editors:

All reporters who have had stories with published corrections in the last year and any editors who inserted errors into copy will be required to take a mandatory class on accuracy and precision to be held the first week of June and led by Carleton Bryant.

Clearly, being put in that class is a form of punishment. Ideally, it would be a badge of honor. All staffers should receive accuracy training to help prevent mistakes. They should also be encouraged to own up to their mistakes and share any personal tips for attaining accuracy.

The Times needs to adjust its accuracy plan. Make it about working together to attain a higher standard, rather than singling out staff members for punishment. Make it about learning from mistakes, rather than embarrassing people. Make prevention and correction a part of the paper’s culture.

A culture of shame and blame just makes people scared to get things wrong. It doesn’t help solve the problem.

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

Recent CJR columns: The cause of errors, fake letters to the editor, to repeat or not to repeat

January 23, 2009 – 2:12 pm

cjr2I’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 don’t mean the paper’s corrections column.
Readers were treated to a pair of articles that offered an impressive amount of insight into mistakes. One was a rare look back at the causes of recent mistakes made by the Times; the other piece seemingly had nothing to do with the press, yet it was just as valuable to journalism.
In the first story of note, Clark Hoyt, the public editor, dedicated his column to walking back the cat on three Times errors.
“Last month,” he wrote, “because reporters and editors in three different parts of the paper did not take enough pains to verify information, The Times reported as fact a political telephone call that didn’t happen, fell victim to a faked letter to the editor, and published a sensational anecdote about a college football recruiting battle that the paper cannot be confident is true.”
Hoyt took the time to go to the editors and reporters involved in the mistakes and ask them how and why the errors occured. The reasons included failing to follow the paper’s existing verification policies (the fake letter) and poor communication (the phantom phone call). The “sensational anecdote” was published due to the combination of an uncooperative and unreliable source, an editor working on Christmas day, and a high school English essay that included a reference to women “romancing each other.”
To those who think accuracy is boring stuff, eat your hearts out …

Last week’s:

To Repeat or Not To Repeat?

To repeat or not to repeat?
It’s a simple question, yet it has vexed editors and correction writers for decades. Is it nobler to restate the error in a correction, or to offer a basic description of the mistake?
Derek Donovan, the reader’s editor of the Kansas City Star, adheres to a policy that proscribes restating the error in a correction. In a recent blog post, he offered a hypothetical scenario:
“For example, let’s say a story refers to Jamie Smith, but she really spells her name Jamie Smyth. The correction should not say: A story in the Nov. 26 Local section misspelled Jamie Smyth’s last name as Smith.
That’s a bad idea because it puts the mistake in the paper a second time. Better simply to write: A story in the Nov. 26 Local section misspelled Jamie Smyth’s last name.”
The goal of not stating the error is to prevent the paper from compounding the offense. It’s similar to the policy of not repeating a libelous statement …

The week before last:

Letter Imperfect

Though it takes up a relatively small amount of real estate, a newspaper or magazine’s letters to the editor section punches far above its weight when it comes to errors and corrections.
Just over the past couple of years, there have been plagiarized letters that made it into print, letters that included egregious factual errors and accusations, letters that were attributed to the wrong person, and letters that were significantly altered due to sloppy editing. Last month alone there were two notable letter errors …

By Craig Silverman | Posted in CJR Column | Also tagged , , , | View Comments

Torontoist blog unveils new corrections system

June 16, 2008 – 8:00 am

One common criticism of blogs is their supposed lack of factual reporting and a proper system for corrections. But many blogs do impressive work in both areas. Here’s one example. Torontoist recently announced a new corrections system. It incorporates a corrections box within the post, as well as a good use of tags, comments and RSS feeds. Editor David Topping wrote a post to outline the blog’s approach:

…As of today, Torontoist is implementing a new standard format for all corrections to posts. Any significant corrections or clarifications will be made as quickly as possible, and a note acknowledging them will be written by the editor-in-chief or an assistant editor and will appear as follows at the bottom of a post:

CORRECTION: MAY 29, 2008In the box will be a full explanation of the error made (citing the article’s original words as appropriate), and a full explanation of the correction.

When that error is appended and the correction made, an editor or assistant editor will also post a comment as soon as possible, linking to the correction, so that the comment thread stays up to date (and in context) with the post. Additionally, the tag “corrections” will be added to the post—and a link to that tag will be added, for now, in our top menu. (You can also subscribe to the tag, as you can with any other tag, using RSS.)

For now, we are still getting a feel for how this system will be used. (A—gasp—misplaced apostrophe: less likely to receive a formal correction; a typo—depends; misspelled names: probably; egregious errors: uh, yes.) There may be some growing pains. No matter what, though, the help of our readers will be invaluable in spotting mistakes and fixing them, and we’d love it if you could help report a mistake either by posting a comment or e-mailing an editor privately. (Depending on the severity of the error, private e-mailing allows for more back-and-forth.)

With the new system, we are trying to be transparent; to admit to, highlight, explain, and ultimately own up to our mistakes when we make them and take steps to prevent them from happening again. Our goal is that that process, in addition to making our errors and their corrections more prominent, will also make them more and more rare—and we’ll all be better for it.

Here’s a recent post that includes a correction. The post has a correction box at the bottom, and you can read the editor’s correction comment here. Corrected posts are filed under this tag.

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

What IT security can teach us about accuracy

November 15, 2007 – 8:00 am

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 games or whatever — are most at risk of being manipulated? The ones where the smallest change can have the greatest impact, and the ones where trusted insiders can make that change.

Donaghy used his position to try and influence the outcome of games, and he was able to because of the way the NBA games operate:

Because individual players matter so much, a single referee can affect a basketball game more than he can in any other sport. Referees call fouls. Contact occurs on nearly every play, any of which could be called as a foul. They’re called “touch fouls,” and they are mostly, but not always, ignored. The refs get to decide which ones to call.

Schneier lists other examples of jobs where people are “both trusted insiders and single points of catastrophic failure.” It could be a “dishonest computer-repair technician…a corrupt judge, police officer, customs inspector, border-control officer, food-safety inspector…”

Or a journalist. Newsrooms build in layers of auditing in an attempt to mitigate the ability of a trusted insider to subvert the system: copy editors, assignment editors etc. But each person in the chain of audit (editing process) is both a point of quality control and a potential point of failure. We then attempt to mitigate that reality by requiring reporters to take notes or record interviews, cite sources, and talk to experts.

Yet we still see people like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, trusted insiders who become single points of catastrophic failure. Incidents of plagiarism, fabrication, and extreme error abound. Clearly, we need to evolve our audit systems. The current reality of shrunken newsrooms — and therefore reduced audit controls — makes it even more imperative that we innovate new ways of ensuring quality. The speed of online news also requires us to find ways to do it at a faster pace.

Yes, a tough challenge. But an exciting one, too.

“All systems have trusted insiders,” according to Schneier. “All systems have catastrophic points of failure. The key is recognizing them, and building monitoring and audit systems to secure them.”

So what does the ideal newsroom monitoring and auditing system look like? Likely a combination of prevention — fact checking, plagiarism detection, training, editing etc. — mixed with post-publication/post-broadcast error tracking and analysis. These elements demand a mix of people, processes and technology. The challenge is creating the right mix and then constantly managing, evolving and improving the system.

It’s a difficult task, but the status quo is a recipe for repeated “catastrophic failures.”

Would you keep following the NBA if you knew another Tim Donaghy was inevitable?

Have an idea for newsroom auditing? Share it in the comments.

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

Orlando Sentinel sees corrections rise at “frightening” pace; the quality revolution

October 30, 2007 – 5:00 am

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 months, the newspaper has corrected more than a third more errors of its own making on average than it did during the relatively placid prior five months,” writes Pynn.

Even more alarmingly, those same three months “have accounted, thus far, for significantly more corrections of internally generated errors than the newspaper averaged in that three-month period during the prior five years. I’d have waited until the end of the month to raise this frightening issue, but with several days left before Halloween, and several more corrections awaiting publication, the total for October already has surpassed that of September — which was worse than August.”

Something is causing errors, and therefore corrections, to spike at the Sentinel. Pynn points to recent job cuts at the paper:

When the Sentinel tightened its financial belt back in June, it lost a wealth of seasoned veterans, many of them editors. Those journalists not only wrote headlines and captions. They also scrutinized the work of reporters — correcting spelling, straightening out syntax, double-checking facts — before publication.
With fewer people to do that now, less of that important work gets done, and the result is more published errors.

It has been widely, obsessively reported that the newspaper industry is in a time of evolution and turmoil. Many of the changes taking place are fascinating and exciting, but change is coming at a price. It usually does. As newsrooms shift resources to online reporting and other areas of growth and innovation, many organizations are either laying off or buying out staff.

Head counts are going down; yet there is at the same time a need for even more reporting to be produced for more areas: writing for the web, video and audio for the web, writing for the paper… As the economic picture becomes more clear, it’s likely that staff levels will once again rise. We are already seeing ads for remarkably new kinds of jobs in journalism.

But there is an urgent issue in the present: how can an organization ensure the quality of its reporting with less people in the newsroom? In the case of the Sentinel, it appears that the paper is struggling to maintain quality after recent staff losses. As Pynn points out, many of those who left the paper were skilled veterans responsible for quality. It’s not the only paper in this situation. Hopefully, Pynn’s column will help the paper realize the danger of degraded quality and work to ensure accuracy in the midst of challenges.

It can be done, and this issue is as much about the future as it is the present. If a newsroom loses a wealth of error-spotters, checkers and other quality hounds, it needs to begin training everyone — not just a select few — in the ways of accuracy. Reporters should be trained to self-check their work. They need to learn their weaknesses and be given a quick, easy procedure to go through before submitting any story. (Some publications use checklists.)

Editors should be armed with information about common errors so they can check for them within every story. All employees should be taught the value of error prevention, and the ethic of correction. Technology should be used to help check for plagiarism, and to track errors.

Everyone at every level in every section is responsible for accuracy. We have to move away from a culture and organizational structure where only some carry the quality mantle on a daily basis. It’s everyone’s job. We need to train people and give them the necessary tools and support. And it has to be done on a consistent basis. Words and slogans are not enough.

“Every business’ success depends on the reliability of its products or services,” writes Pynn. “If their reliability declines, people are less likely to buy them. Newspapers are particularly susceptible to that phenomenon.”

Other industries have taken the concept of quality to new heights. They obsess about the quality of their products and innovate ways to ensure it.

The current period of transition in the news industry is the perfect time to start a quality revolution in reporting.

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