The most irritating errors in a newspaper often are the most obvious — at least to the reader who spotted the failures in print.
Sometimes it is a word spelled wrong, or misused. Sometimes it is an obvious question, unasked. Sometimes it is a disagreement over what one person feels is obvious, or a historical fact.
This past year has been full of examples, and certainly the New Year will offer a new set of irritants to point out, chew on and correct.
It seems incredible that a Muslim extremist could be identified as a “Muslin extremist,” particularly on the front page of this newspaper. But it happened recently. Few readers noticed because it appeared only in a limited number of papers in the press run, a result of a late-night change. It is entirely possible more readers noticed the correction, which ran promptly, than the original error.
Reactions to such errors almost always come from one of two camps.
Some people respond with anger, feeling violated by what they see as epidemic sloppiness all around them. Quite often they will ask some unanswerable question such as, “How could you be so stupid?” They tend to take errors personally and suggest that the staff of the newspaper is undereducated, unskilled or just doesn’t care.
Most readers respond with some sympathy. They expect better and feel compelled to point out the error, but acknowledge that mistakes happen to everyone. These readers frequently say things like, “It could have happened to me.” They tend to see mistakes as a reflection of humanity and react with mild amusement.
But both raise the same question: Why do mistakes happen in the newspaper?
The Bee’s guidelines for its staff have not changed dramatically since the founding of the newspaper during the Gold Rush. Accuracy and precision are expected.
Goals and realities
A “style card” circulated inside The Bee included this note: “Correct names and initials, geographical locations, figures and quotations are the foundation of a newspaper’s accuracy.” Help was available: “Directories, telephone books, maps and reference volumes obviate excuses for mistakes.”
That language brings to mind the admonition of my Army sergeant during training. “Excuse is failure!” He didn’t care what went wrong. He wanted things right.
I didn’t argue with the sergeant then, and I would never disagree with any reader now who says the newspaper should be careful and accurate.
When the front page of The Bee on Jan.1, 2003, reported that Sacramentans were celebrating near the river named after their town, it was wrong, no matter why.
The questions about how such errors happen in a newspaper came up so frequently during 2002 that I feel obliged to try once again to revisit the answers, knowing my sergeant would not accept any excuses.
Caution: Humans at work
Mistakes happen in newspapers because they are produced by human beings.
Fingers do not type perfectly. In the first 400 words or so of this column I mistyped about 40 words. I know how to spell each word. I have good tools: a dictionary in my computer and three more on my desk surface nearby.
Like most of the folks in the newsroom, I received a reasonably good education during undergraduate and graduate study. I try to be very careful. I know you are watching more closely than my spell checker.
After 40 years at newspapers, I have learned how it is easy to be wrong, and difficult to be careful and precise, and right.
Speed kills
Speed is the great enemy of accuracy in newspapers. This Sunday newspaper you are reading includes more words than a novel the size of “Gone With the Wind,” or a Tom Clancy opus, and it is produced within hours.
Consider a sports reporter has to choose from among hundreds of interesting mini-events on and off the court, and get it all together in an hour or so, if the computer doesn’t crash. The editors may be dealing with a dozen such games on the same night.
As a reader I don’t care about that stuff. I expect the story in the next morning’s newspaper to be correct and complete, adding to my enjoyment of the game (whether I was present or not).
Even lengthy news reporting projects that take months to research always end up running on deadline.
Finally, readers expect reporters and editors to know language, history, math, science and everything the government is doing, will do or might have done, and why.
Some journalists have that sort of encyclopedic knowledge, and others don’t. We all need to use the resources better.
Dealing with facts requires a high level of precision. What were the words spoken by Neil Armstrong when he stepped onto the moon? Was it one small step “for a man,” or “for man”? Those of us who heard those words in the Mission Control Center still debate the point. What was intended, transmitted and actually spoken on the moon are not necessarily the same.
River came first
A local museum docent pointed out the New Year’s Day front page that said the Sacramento River was named after the City of Sacramento. The reverse is true. The caption could, and should, have been checked, caught and corrected.
Another reader noticed a wire story that reported a high-speed train in China can travel 260 miles per hour, “faster than” World War II fighter planes. By the end of that war numerous planes exceeded 400 miles per hour.
It is probable no editor who handled the story had the background to spot the error.
But it still should have been right.
The challenge for newspapers in 2003 is to deliver up to that expectation.
