To celebrate the newsroom’s success in lowering the number of corrections we’ve published in the past year, the Free Press recently held an internal promotion called Error-Free Week.
The week, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, was sponsored by the newspaper’s Accuracy and Credibility Committee. The goal was an error-free newspaper each day.
The 10-person committee scrutinized the newspapers to spot errors, big and small. The goal was to reward and acknowledge any section that was free of errors all week.
We disqualified a section if it contained something incorrect, unexplainable or untrue or a non sequitur. Errors of omission, such as not identifying someone in a photo, were also counted, as were punctuation and grammar errors.
The types of errors we found included failure to capitalize the first word of a sentence, failure to flow type correctly from one column to the next so that the sentence made sense, and failure to correctly identify a person in a photograph.
The results: 11 sections out of 45 sections published over those six days were error free. We published five corrections that week; we normally average eight.
Colleagues told me they thought the error-free week idea worked by reminding staffers of the importance of reducing errors.
One reason we focused on how the Free Press has done since July 2001 is because that’s when we began using accuracy checklists in our newsrooms.
The goal of the checklists is to remind newsroom journalists, especially on deadline, to verify and re-verify certain information and to help make sure stories, photos and graphics are correct and work together.
On Wednesday of error-free week, the accuracy committee rewarded with candy those whose checklists were on display.
The checklists’ impact has been measurable. Since we started using them in July 2001, we have lowered corrections by 18 percent, with our daily average dropping from about 1.5 to 1.2 corrections.
Several of my recent columns have dealt with accuracy in grammar and word use, and what our astute readers expect of the Free Press.
I know my colleagues might say I nag too much on the subject of accuracy.
But my goal is to keep accuracy foremost in the newsroom and with readers so we journalists don’t get careless and forgetful, and so we keep trying to avoid the “oops” of getting things wrong.
