Imagine error-free existence.
Such life wouldn’t create news as we know it — reports on actions that violate everything from basic morals to natural law and beyond. We wouldn’t need a buzz about scandals, accidents, bad movies or mixed-up takeout orders.
Readers wouldn’t come across Star-Telegram content like the bit from Wednesday’s issue that read: “Get a colonoscopy. If you’re over 50, ask your daughter about screening for colon cancer to improve your chance of early detection.”
One reader, bored at home on an icy day, sent her thanks for a good laugh. Another said he thought he’d ask his doctor, not his daughter.
That’s what the copy should have said, as we explained in a correction. What we didn’t have room to explore is how doctor morphed into daughter. Devoted parents will understand the challenges of editing copy while one’s child is top of mind.
Readers know that publications are liable to contain all sorts of errors. Most writers and editors are forever engaged in pre-publication efforts to attain accuracy, a cornerstone of credibility. As last week’s Consumer Reports controversy reminds us, the best can fail. The eminently credible CR retracted findings based on highly flawed research on infant car seats.
When the Star-Telegram publishes inaccurate or confusing information, we either correct the error or clarify murky information for our 590,000 daily readers and 847,000 Sunday readers out of respect for them and our need for trust.
Corrections and clarifications become part of our electronic archive. They are added permanently in red characters above the story that contains an error. Updates of stories on the Star-Telegram’s Web site will note any inaccurate information that might have appeared in earlier versions, and there are links to corrections.
As readers who are new to the Star-Telegram might have noticed, we publish corrections and clarifications on the cover of the section in which an inaccuracy was printed. That’s an unusually candid approach in the newspaper industry, and we are proud of it even though it means that some corrections run on Page One. We believe that the policy rightly gives prominence to our commitment to accuracy and credibility.
Such an admission surprises some readers. As one asked a while back, “Aren’t you afraid of admitting mistakes?”
It’s an unpleasant experience. Nothing disturbs journalists like getting caught in an error because their credibility is threatened, but trust is at stake. Discomfort is a small payment to preserve trust.
As odd as it may seem to some, we believe that corrections reflect a spirit of professionalism, honesty and openness — qualities essential to nurturing trust.
That’s why in January, we report the total number of corrections and clarifications we published in the previous year.
Turns out that 2006 yielded a surprise. The Star-Telegram published 504 corrections and clarifications for the year. That’s a record five-year low. The previous years’ totals were much higher: 656 in 2005; 709 in 2004; 734 in 2003, and 659 in 2002.
Immediately, we ask: Why?
The answer after checking with key Star-Telegram editors: We don’t know.
Perhaps accuracy initiatives worked.
Perhaps, in our dark fears of publishing inaccurate information, we weren’t fully forthcoming in admitting mistakes. We hope that was not the case. Staff and department heads know the importance of correcting errors.
Perhaps we published fewer stories, creating fewer opportunities for errors.
Nope. News researcher Jodie Sanders ran an archives check and found that we published 70,597 stories last year — more than the annual average of 68,574 for the past five years.
That’s not a reliable gauge anyway. The total could be off by scores of items — for instance, it doesn’t reflect the fluctuating number of briefs in our state, national and international briefs packages and other collections of briefs. One set of briefs counts as only one story.
Whatever the case, here’s one bottom line for readers: We might not have hard and fast measures to share regarding the number of errors that we published in 2006, but we do have at least two forces at work for readers: a commitment to accurate information and a corrections and clarifications policy to back it up.
Examples can be found easily. When they run, they’re part of the day’s most important content — out there on the covers, beginning with Page 1A.
