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CJR Poll
Handling Corrections
Senior news people assess journalists' performance in dealing with boners,
boo-boos, blunders, and bloopers
By Neil Hickey
Neil Hickey is CJR's editor at large.
In a 1690 prospectus for America’s first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, editor Benjamin Harris promised that in his publication, ". . . nothing shall be entered, but what we have reason to believe is true . . . . And when there appears any material mistake in anything that is collected, it shall be corrected in the next."
Ever since, journalists have wrestled with the problem of how to deal with mistakes that creep into their reports. How prominently should errors be acknowledged, and how expeditiously? What mechanisms should be in place to assure that inaccuracies are scrupulously corrected? What clear, standard operating procedures work best?
| Do you think news reports that contain factual mistakes: |
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To find out how journalists around the country feel about mistakes, miscues, misprints, miscalculations, and missteps, the Columbia Journalism Review, with the nonprofit, nonpartisan research firm Public Agenda, polled 125 senior journalists nationwide. Confidentiality was assured, but four out of ten of the sample offered brief, for-attribution elaborations of their views.
A few of the findings are troubling. Examples:
- Fully 70 percent of the respondents feel that most news organizations do a "poor" (20 percent) or "fair" (50 percent) job of informing the public about errors in their reporting. Barely a quarter call it "good." A paltry 2 percent award a rating of "excellent."
- A remarkable 91 percent (the heaviest majority for any question asked in this or previous cjr polls) think that newsrooms need more open and candid internal discussion of editorial mistakes and what to do about them.
- Almost four in ten feel sure that many factual errors are never corrected because reporters and editors are eager to hide their mistakes.
- More than half think that most news organizations lack proper internal guidelines for making corrections.
HONEST MISTAKES, OR MISCHIEF?
Broadcast news is the "most susceptible" medium for letting inaccuracies creep into reporting, according to our respondents. Well over a third call TV/radio news the worst offenders.
Next come newspapers (18 percent) and cable news (14 percent).
Newsmagazines, on the other hand rate better. Not a single respondent declared them most prone to error.
How come? Well, probably because those weeklies have longer deadlines than dailies or electronic media, and because they employ full-time researchers who also serve as fact-checkers.
Are erring news reports a bigger problem today than in years gone by? A sizeable 40 percent think they are, but half say it’s about the same as it’s always been.
A majority of the respondents (52 percent) think that the news media need to give corrections more prominent display. Thirty-four percent think they’re getting about the right amount.
| In your view, which - if any - of the following media are most susceptible to making mistakes in their reporting? |
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Most (64 percent) say that at their news organizations, reporters are obliged to let their bosses know if a member of the public lodges a plea for a correction. Surprisingly, more than a third leave it up to the reporter’s own judgment to decide whether to pass the demand up the line.
But errors are not always a reporter’s fault. Fifty-two percent agreed that many mistakes are due to things not under a reporter’s control, such as poor editing or misleading headlines.
More than half (58 percent) of the newsrooms represented in the poll have a specific person designated to review and assess requests for corrections. But 40 percent of the respondents said they do not have such a staff member.
Regrettably, in the last fourteen months, a number of intentionally fallacious and fictionized reports have famously found their way into print – from Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith of The Boston Globe to Stephen Glass of The New Republic, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and other publications. But nobody denies that most editorial whoppers in print, broadcast, and cable are honest ones, and not the result of calculated mischief or roguery by staffers. Still, when we asked: "Have you ever seriously suspected a colleague of manufacturing a quote or an incident?" a disturbingly high 38 percent answered yes. Reassuringly, 57 percent said no.
"DECRIMINALIZE" THE OFFENSE
A number of our respondents sent along copies of their printed guidelines for handling corrections. At The Roanoke Times, for example, the paper’s Professional Standards and Policies for News Employees states unambiguously: "We correct all mistakes. Whenever a possible error is called to our attention, a staff member should handle the matter in as courteous a manner as possible and immediately apprise an editor." The correction or clarification is published "as soon as possible." It should be "clear and concise, and should not repeat the erroneous information." On the masthead of each issue, the Times informs readers that it corrects errors, and provides the newsroom telephone number.
| Does your organization have a specific office or person responsible for reviewing, assessing, and responding to demands for corrections? |
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Jerry Ceppos, former executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News (who recently became Knight Ridder’s vice president of news), volunteered: "You’ve hit on a subject that I’ve thought a lot about." The key to corrections policy, he believes, is "decriminalizing" the offense. At the Mercury News, he told employees that the paper doesn’t run enough corrections, even though he suspects that it publishes more of them than all but a few newspapers. Even a few years ago, he thinks, journalists would not, publicly, have made such a big deal out of invented stories and fictional quotes. "My guess is that the offenders would have been allowed to walk away quietly. We are beyond that time, and it’s a great thing for journalism."
At The Miami Herald, the routine is first to verify that an error has indeed been made, then prepare a correction, plus an internal memo on how it happened. To ensure that the error isn’t perpetuated, the paper corrects the library version of the offending story.
It’s a "fireable offense" at The Kansas City Star, according to vice president and editor Mark Zieman, for a staff member to conceal from his bosses a legitimate request for a correction. Charles Zobell, managing editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, says that whenever a reporter is responsible for an inaccuracy, a note is placed in his/her file for discussion during annual performance evaluation. Mark Bowden, managing editor of The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) says that at his paper, an editor or reporter who commits a mistake must give a written explanation to the managing editor. An apology goes to the complainant if the error is personal.
Page two is the location of choice for corrections among many newspapers responding to the survey. Will E. Corbin, vice president and editor of the Daily Press, Newport News, Virginia, says that "without reservation" that’s where his corrections go, in a "standard, reader-friendly format." For "really egregious" boners, the redress gets "bigger, more prominent play." At The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, according to former editor David Hall, corrections run as near as possible to where they were made, and indexed on page 2. If the error was on page one, says The Augusta Chronicle’s executive editor Dennis Sodomka, that’s where the correction goes.
Among TV and radio folk, the righting of miscues customarily means acknowledging the mistake immediately, during the same program, or the earliest possible succeeding one. Says Colleen Reynolds, news director, WJBC-AM (Bloomington, Illinois): "The retraction or clarification is run at the same time of day as the erroneous story, and with the same frequency as the original." At another station, errors are reviewed by management, and the correction is aired on three consecutive newscasts.
PLUS ÇA CHANGE…
More than 300 years have elapsed since Publick Occurrences announced its determination to correct all its published mistakes. The paper lasted only one issue before being suppressed by Puritan clergy in Boston for an allegedly scandalous, and perhaps erroneous, story.
Seven months ago, the American Society of Newspaper Editors issued a report titled "Why Newspaper Credibility Has Been Dropping." What ASNE called "Major Finding #1" was that "the public sees too many factual errors…in newspapers." Many readers allow that miscues can occur in the rush to meet deadlines, but others attribute them to "sloppiness, carelessness, laziness," and to the fact that "journalists just don’t know any better."
Well, things have changed a little since 1690.
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ABOUT THE CJR POLL These findings report the views of 125 editors and news directors from print and broadcast media who responded to a questionnaire sent by fax on March 12. Responses received through March 18 were tabulated. The Columbia Journalism Review drew the names from membership lists of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the Associated Press Managing Editors, and the National Association of Black Journalists. This survey is based upon a non-random, self-selected sample. The results represent the views of those who chose to respond to the survey; they are not generalizable to the journalist population as a whole. To access these findings online, visit www.cjr.org, or www.publicagenda.org. |
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