The approach some news organizations take to correcting errors can be a reflection of how readily they will acknowledge mistakes. One possible reason for their hesitation is perhaps holding themselves to an unrealistic standard of how often they will get something wrong.
Even if errors in newspapers occur fairly regularly, this is not something many publications would like to have widely known because of the impact on their reliability and believability. But the prevalence of journalism online is a cause for concern here as errors may be seen more quickly.
In some instances news publications do not correct their errors due to the basic stigma attached. Some tools now can provide access to earlier versions of corrected articles.
Newspaper Reluctance to Delete Site Content
But in a related sense newspapers concerned about maintaining the record of their work may not want to delete content from their sites even if it shows errors. “They want to preserve the integrity of the archive, and worry that if they unpublish a story based on one request they’ll have to do so for everyone who makes these requests,” Mallary Jean Tenore wrote in “5 Ways News Organizations Respond to ‘Unpublishing’ Requests” July 20, 2010 on PoynterOnline.
“The newspaper’s process for handling correction requests has not worked properly. In some instances, reporters were never even notified that readers had requested corrections to their stories,” Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander said in the paper March 22, 2009 in “A Corrections Process in Need of Correcting.”
Though one of the circumstances in which papers will remove articles is when they learn that material has been plagiarized whether by a regular staffer or contributor. In other cases a paper may delete stories in their entirety without calling attention to the action if major mistakes are uncovered.
“Misspelled names and typos are among the more basic errors journalists make. But there’s another type of error that is harder to correct: when journalists miss the story completely,” Tenore said July 19, 2010 on PoynterOnline in “Why Journalists Make Mistakes & What We Can Do About Them.”
Consequences of Early Shirley Sherrod News Reports
Although not specific to newspapers, a prime example of flawed reporting occurred in July 2010 with the Shirley Sherrod story. Sherrod, the director of Rural Development in Georgia for the Department of Agriculture, was forced by the Obama administration to resign shortly after the release of an edited video of earlier remarks she made before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
A number of news organizations, both print and television, described the edited tape and provided links to it. What drove the initial stories were primarily speech excerpts posted on the Web site of conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.
In her speech to the NAACP as first reported, Sherrod related her reluctance to assist a white farmer who had come to her for help. However, when the full speech was examined, it emerged that Sherrod was recalling how she overcame racial resentment and realized it was her obligation to aid the farmer and his family which she did.
The immediate response to the edited tape was the White House and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ordering Sherrod to step down from her job immediately. Both later apologized to her for the rush to judgment.
The story’s aftermath was to raise further questions over how well journalists adhere to standards in checking facts, the context of words, and sources of information, and whether bloggers should be able to propel certain stories to the forefront. Brietbart approached Sherrod’s speech as a critic of the administration and of allegations of racism in the Tea Party movement.
The Sherrod episode showed some publications will do a story first without all available information and then respond after learning of unfolding details.
Responding to Previously Reported Errors
With newspaper articles now available online that did not appear that way originally, papers can include an addendum to stories if subsequent events warrant. Papers also can exercise the option to do a follow-up piece with a link to the first article.
“The Post must also figure out how to handle corrections online,” Ombudsman Alexander wrote in the paper in 2009. “Currently, policies at washingtonpost.com mainly address corrections for print stories that appear on the Web site. But what about correcting videos and other forms of online storytelling?”
Efforts to improve or promote accuracy have included making suggested revisions to articles that writers may consider incorporating into their existing text.
However, the issue is not simply how to address errors made recently or in the past. Some observers contend that too often careful analysis and consideration of information is lacking or not brought to bear in reporting in the first place.
“Traditional journalism certainly punishes trivial errors--trivial in the sense of errors in basic facts--but it formulates news in a way that hedges against the problem of substantive error, the product of a variety of causes such as the omission of key contextual information, or the exaggeration or misinterpretation of data,” Trevor Butterworth said in “It’s The Inaccuracy, Stupid” July 27, 2010 on Forbes.com.
John Seidenberg - John Seidenberg has worked on newspapers, newsletters, radio news, and produced specialized news publications as well as freelance ...
