"What happens when you make a mistake?" one boy asked shyly. "Do you have to go take back all the bad papers?"
If only we could. Mistakes tend to be inevitable when you're producing an edition every night, often on a limited staff, and there are always readers who are more than happy to overlook what you've done right and let you know what you've done wrong.
But grammar errors and misspelled headlines aside, mistakes within copy such as wrong quotes or misidentifications can call the very credibility of a publication into question. The allegation of error may be made directly to the reporter or to an editor, who will then judge whether the newspaper did indeed err and what kind of a correction is warranted. The correction is usually printed in the next edition, and is usually worded positively, clarifying the true facts instead of starkly highlighting the newspaper's fault. Example: "Joe Smith, director of the local food bank featured in Wednesday's editions, is 56 years old."
Online journalism offers not only wider readership, but the opportunity to correct errors even faster.
Online publications and blogs alike should always be committed to reporting the truth, and when an error is brought to the site editor's attention it should be dealt with promptly. If not, questions about the site's credibility can easily spread like wildfire across the Web, threatening the time and effort that pro or citizen journalists took to build the site up.
How to remedy the situation depends on:
- Pre-established correction rules for the site: Is the wrong item simply fixed, or is there a notation that alerts readers who might have seen the piece earlier (and perhaps repeated on their own site) that there was an error in copy?
- How bad was the error? If it's your fault, best to bite the bullet and admit so right out of the gate. Find out how you erred (trusting a bad source, taking bad notes, etc.) and devise how you can prevent such a mistake from happening again (i.e. backing up your notes with an audio recording).
- How steamed is the person affected by the copy error? If they, or someone completely unrelated to the story, simply advises you of a copy mistake, quickly fix it and move on. If the error is so bad as to incite controversy, call a subject's reputation into question or make the subject hopping mad, converse as politely as possible with the subject, apologize for misquoting or misrepresenting him or her (or whatever the error may be) and publish a correction. Acting swiftly and accepting responsibility works wonders in defusing a potentially ugly situation.
There are times, of course, when a subject claims you've made an error and a thorough review of the facts indicates that you haven't or it can't be proven that you did. At a newspaper, that's what your editor is there for. When you're flying solo online, and you know you're in the right, stand your ground. If the situation becomes even stickier, groups such as the California First Amendment Coalition can offer valuable advice to protect journalists.
When you're in the wrong, though, don't fight the fix. It's a whole lot easier than going porch to porch and gathering up all the bad newspapers -- and a whole lot better for one's professional reputation.