‘An article about decorative cooking incorrectly described a presentation of Muscovy duck by Michel Fitoussi, a New York chef. In preparing it, Mr. Fitoussi uses a duck that has been killed.”
That enlightening passage came not from this newspaper but rather from the New York Times, a collection of whose “most interesting, embarrassing and off-beat corrections” appears in the recent book Kill Duck Before Serving.
The Sentinel, of course, has produced its own share of howlers. Despite some evidence to the contrary, though, the corrections and clarifications at the bottom of Page A3 are not designed to amuse.
They exist to set the record straight — and to enhance the newspaper’s credibility.
Academic and journalistic research of the past few years has shown the importance of accuracy and accountability. And that prompted former St. Petersburg Times editor Bob Haiman to produce a handbook titled Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists for the Freedom Forum, a foundation dedicated to free expression.
In it, he calls attention to the journalistic practices that readers regard as unfair. At the top of that list, he places getting facts wrong and refusing to admit errors.
The Sentinel has taken that message seriously, spending the past six months tracking errors like never before. And, based on the increased volume of corrections and clarifications published, I think we can conclude that the newspaper now is almost 65 percent more credible than it was at this point last year — and 79 percent more credible than in July of 2000.
That, of course, depends on your taking the optimistic view that publishing more corrections indicates greater diligence in atoning for transgressions, not sloppier work.
Thus far this year the Sentinel has published 364 corrections and clarifications — more than it published in all of 2000.
But that diligence also has helped identify what the newspaper has trouble getting right.
In general, gathering the news — taking accurate notes from interviews and reviews of records — poses more problems than any of the other journalistic functions the Sentinel measures. That accounts for the greatest number of errors, 115 so far this year.
Writing the news — translating the information collected into readable prose — has proven problematic, as well, putting that function solidly in second place in the error hit parade with 72.
Two types of editing — text-editing and the writing of headlines and captions — come in almost tied for third and fourth, with photography and graphic arts posing the least number of problems.
Some errors, of course, can’t be avoided, and the tracking system has a slot for that, too. But not many mistakes fall into that category.
The Sentinel now has the challenge of using that information not just to ferret out and correct errors but to find ways to prevent future problems.
Maybe then it can avoid corrections such as this one, also from the New York Times collection:
“A chart about the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting misspelled the names of several advisers. They are Studs Terkel, Frances Moore Lappe, Gloria Steinem and Casey Kasem.”
