Should the correction be proportionate to the original article?

This debate still continues.

Newspapers tend to bury their corrections. (Of course, broadcasters just tend to ignore most of them -- there's always the next newscast to get it right.)

 The argument, at least one of them, goes that putting the correction in that small box on the same page every day means people will know where they are and can find them.

The counter is that people tend to look where they look every day, not necessarily at that page with the corrections box.

I can buy the same-place argument for your run of the mill brief or below-the-fold copy.

But when you banner something across the top of your business page and the central fact of your lede is wrong

Should the correction be done like this?

And when you make a strategic change in wording on your website, shouldn't the correction be noted, even to helpfully (assuming you caught it quickly online) to say it was wrong in some printed editions? (I don't see any note at all on this page giving readers any hint.)

And we wonder why the latest Gallup Poll shows a record low of trust in the media?

Vote on legislative pay can be mined for interesting insight

Everyone was so rushed yesterday about the House's overturning Gov. Nikki Haley's vetoes, especially the one effectively granting legislators a $12,000-a-year-pay raise, that the Statehouse press corps missed a good chance to provide some insight into what actually happened.

The House initially sustained the veto at 6:09 p.m., 73-39, with 11 abstentions and one excused absence. Twenty minutes later, the House overrode the veto, 73-29, with 19 abstentions and three excused absences. (This is a long list of the roll-call votes; you'll have to pick your way through by time or look for "Governor's Veto 76.")

In the Post and Courier in Charleston, it was summed up this way:

Haley had wanted the pay increase to go to state voters for approval by way of the ballot box. Rep. Jim Merrill R-Charleston, took to the floor to explain the effects of the pay raise, answering questions. He did not recommend to override or sustain the veto when it went up for a vote. He also said that the districts lawmakers represent are more populous and more pay would go a long way toward making the job of serving more desirable and competitive. Lawmakers' current yearly salary is $10,400.

Though the House initially voted on sustaining Haley's veto, members later returned to the measure and 73 members voted in favor of overriding it.

That might well lead a reader to think that somehow House leaders were able to round up more votes to reach 73 the second time. But the number of "yes" votes remained the same -- the real story may be that in 20 minutes, enough pressure was brought to bear so that eight to 10 (depending on how you want to count it) House members took a walk. That's a much different dynamic (and well worth a follow-up).

Meanwhile, The State, whose story was picked up widely, got the initial vote total wrong, listing it as 73-29 each time.

The paper has now corrected it online (though without any note of a correction nor, as of 6/19, a correction in the paper). My pointing this out is not to ridicule but because of a deep concern that such things burrow into databases (and that all those versions picked up elsewhere probably won't be corrected), thus distorting the historical record. Online has raised the bar for being careful even more.

Important reads: How HuffPo wins SEO battle; How things went wrong at Fox, CNN

Two important reads:

• Frederic Filloux illustrates why the Huffington Post continues to suck traffic away from trad media on the trads' stories by effective use of search engine optimization.
• Tom Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog, has a very detailed, long timeline on what went wrong in the reporting of the Supreme Court's health care decision. This would be a great reading assignment for any reporting, management or ethics class.

When a correction is not enough

When a correction blows a hole in a previous story and actually raises more questions about what went on, is a small correction buried on page two enough?

Here's an example from The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C.

The original story:

What crosses the jump is this graf (Keel is Mark Keel, head of the State Law Enforcement Division):

Keel said the sanctions came because SLED’s prior administration outsourced most of the agency’s information technology work. That left the agency unable to monitor local law enforcement agencies as they used the federal system, leading to the sanctions. “I don’t know if the prior administration understood how important this particular part of the agency was."

Later, the story explained that as a result of outsourcing IT, SLED stopped doing required audits of the use of the national crime database.

The same information was picked up by AP from The State:
SLED is supposed to audit every local law enforcement agency to make sure it uses the federal crime database properly. Those audits stopped in 2007 under Keel's predecessor as the agency had most of its technology work done by outside companies. The FBI sanctioned SLED last week, but also commended the agency for taking steps to resume the audits.

OK, makes sense to me and provides a simple explanation, although one could certainly raise a bunch more questions about Keel's predecessor and the decisions to outsource IT. One might also ask why SLED wrote a contract, apparently, that did not give it an opportunity to audit, etc.

Then today comes this correction, buried at the bottom of page 2:

To my mind, that raises many more serious questions. If the IT was not outsourced, then the problems were even more clearly internal to SLED. Why did it stop monitoring? Why were no audits done?  Is there a failure of leadership or a systemic failure?

This is when a typical correction does not cut it.

The paper's online story has this graf:

Keel said the sanctions came because SLED’s prior administration had planned to outsource most of the agency’s information technology work. The plans caused SLED to lost [sic] most of its IT staff, which left the agency unable to monitor local law enforcement agencies as they used the federal system. That lead [sic] to the sanctions from the FBI.

“I don’t know if the prior administration understood how important this particular part of the agency was.”

OK, perhaps not quite so nefarious (though it still raises many questions), but it reinforces my point. The buried correction was not enough. There is an important nuance here for the necessary understanding. At least the correction should have been more robust.

But this also raises some other questions. I can't tell, because I did not see the original online version, but it appears the story has been hastily changed (circumstantial evidence comes from the two language problems note with "sic"). If that's the case, I see no note on the story indicating the change was made. That would be a transparency problem, something else the paper might want to think about in being honest with its audience.

Correcting Twitter - to delete or not

An excellent conversation is going on at Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard blog given the erroneous information that went out this weekend on Twitter that the Arizona congresswoman had died.

Pick one:
- Do you delete ("scrub") the erroneous information as if it never happened?
- Do you scrub it but put out a correction?
- Do you scrub it but attach make a screenshot of the former tweet so that the erroneous one does not live on "in the wild" but the context is preserved as best you can (though you lose a lot of meta information)?
- Do you retweet the erroneous tweet with the correction appended?

Of course, saying to pick just one is simplistic. It's much more nuanced, taking into account how the speed of propagation has changed many of the old "rules" (which were never followed that well anyway when it comes to corrections).

It's worth reading.

Buttry: Time to weigh the value of clean copy

Steve Buttry, former copy editor, trainer for the American Press Institute, editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and now director of community engagement for TBD.com, weighs in on balancing the value of clean copy to today's digital realities.

To summarize (but you should read his entire post because a summary never adequately picks up the nunances) and my thoughts (in italics):

• "But as someone working on journalism innovation, I know that costs and value propositions are a critical factor in financial success and even survival." Yes, and much of this falls at the feet of copy editors. I still haven't seen them make an effective cost/value argument in the language executives use: Dollars and cents. In some quarters, I still sense a sense of fantasy - a fantasy that somehow there will be a massive lawsuit somewhere that will make "the industry" stand up and notice. Not going to happen.
• "My first newspaper had no copy desk and it was nowhere near as good as the Register, but it was good enough. ...I knew the city editor was just going to give my copy a quick glance, so I had to take responsibility for the quality of my copy, and I made it pretty good." "Good enough" still scares me as a standard because I don't know what it means. "Perfection" also scares me because it is a) not attainable and b) as a result tends to lead to paralysis. But striving for a level of perfection seems to be a useful glide slope if we are wise enough to know when the slope is too steep. But Buttry's ultimate point here that we MUST inculcate in all staff that editing is now everyone's responsibility is well-taken.
• "We have no copy editors at TBD (and got criticized for that after a famous correction). While the newsroom staffing was Editor Erik Wemple’s decision, I fully support it. You can’t do everything, and a digital operation can correct after publication with less damage than a print publication (very few people saw the original error that we were correcting; it was the correction that went viral)." Too facile. That original error is likely to be cached somewhere, and even with "very few" (please define - hundreds, a few thousand?), the network effects power means it still can get into the digital bloodstream. Errors have long tails just as much as corrected copy does. Yes, I agree we have to rethink - the digital environment is more plastic than print. But there are some realities that the "we can correct it quickly and few will notice" camp also conveniently overlooks. To TBD's credit, the correction is prominently displayed, something you are less likely to find elsewhere. 
• "Erik gave everyone a writing test in the interview, so we could see their raw copy. You do need to screen for copy quality. If copy editing resources can’t be what they used to be, then maybe you can no longer afford that staff member who’s a good reporter but a mediocre (or even bad) writer. Or even a good writer but a lousy speller. (Or you need to demand that they get better and start compensating for the weaknesses they know they have.)" Amen. Unfortunately, in most newsrooms it's not the case, with reporting and content creation valued far more than the integrated writing/editing skills. Dan Conover even has made a case that journalism's future lies more in a data-intensive model that should value reporting at least equally if not more than writing/editing. As he puts it: "A print journalist is supposed to do both things well, but truth be told, if you can't tell a good story in a compelling way, your print-reporting career is toast. Weak reporter? We'll coach-you-up. Fundamentally clueless as a writer? Consider another line of work. ... Journalism is a profession for storytellers, and our newsroom culture celebrates romantic myths that are generally hostile to structure."
• "Quality has always been a relative matter, with publications deciding how much they could afford to spend in pursuit of unattainable perfection. I hope the value equation continues to support copy editors at most operations, but that’s a decision individual editors, publishers and group presidents will have to make with their budgets, their value equations and their communities." See my above comments about perfection and groups like ACES yet to make the value proposition.
• "Here’s a practical question: Has the chain consolidated editing functions? That’s not as good a solution, in terms of quality, as having copy editors at each location. But if an organization doesn’t have or can’t afford quality editing at each location, consolidation might provide better, more efficient editing and design." If you define editing as "production," this makes absolute sense, and that's where copy editors failed to see their blindside. They assumed they were all about "quality," a squishy, largely unmeasurable term. Their bosses saw them as "production," a very measurable cost. If editing/copy editing is to find a new equilibrium in the digital age, editors are going to have to rethink how to reframe the quality argument.
• "Another thing to consider is whether an organization is spending too much time editing wire copy. I know local copy editors add value when they edit wire copy, having done it myself. I also know that wire copy has already been edited by professional copy editors. The local editing can and should be cut back or nearly eliminated. Or certainly wire editing could be consolidated among affiliated newspapers." I was a wire-service correspondent and later editor. Trust me, consolidate the editing, but don't abandon it.
• The truth is that grammar and editing skills are declining in the population and among journalists. Newspapers are in a difficult spot. Readers are older and learned grammar in a different era when it got greater emphasis (though you’d be amazed how many arrogant, critical letters I received from readers, taking us to task for our errors but containing errors of their own). But many staff members are young people who grew up txting “lol, omg” and the like." Newspapers have always been in a difficult spot - how much to follow and how much to lead. That's why you had editors. I'm unclear what Steve is trying to say here - abandon ship because grammar and editing skills are declining overall - or take a more measured approach and try to lead more? What is the role of media in all this? I tend to favor a leadership role because what I hear from others in the business community outside of media is a great wail about declining language skills. So it would seem there is some value proposition in this. If you have any doubt that business does and will influence things, consider the language/writing changes in the SAT. (And here's a quiz question - find at least one language error in that article I linked to - hint, look for the apostrophe misused to make a plural.)
• "Anyway, I think in today’s value analysis, clean copy (especially AP style) isn’t as valuable as it used to be (or has been surpassed in value by some other factors). As an editor, I did occasionally field calls from people complaining about grammar and spelling, but never about AP style." Why do these things always come down to the straw man of AP style? I agree with Buttry - people who obsess about AP style need to get a life (click on the "style-AP" tag below to see some of my suggestions for removing some of AP's inanities). On the other hand, many publications, not just newspapers, still use it as a unifying element (you want to talk about inefficiency, especially with consolidated editing, try dealing with multiple styles - local variations are bad enough). So for now, in j-school, we probably are still obligated to teach some style (just as we have to teach APA, MLA and Chicago, if those writers are doing academic papers - style is just a fact of publication), but teach it in a balanced, enlightened way, not one that turns people into style enforcers.

My bottom line here: Buttry's post is valuable for again highlighting the modern realities and issues surrounding editing and the need to develop its value proposition and not just bemoan "quality." But it's too facile in some areas, as much of this discussion tends to be. I can't make the ACES meeting in Phoenix this year (I have to be at the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium the same weekend), but I'd use Buttry's as the centerpiece around which to start a serious conversation about where editing goes. So far, most of what I've seen are editors hanging on for dear life, along for the ride, not trying to really take charge of what they can about their futures.

And editing educators should have the same conversation - continually.

(Disclaimer - I have no editor on this post, so there probably are some errors. I'm happy to correct them if you point them out.)
-----
Update: One might also consider this article from across the pond by Allan Prosser commenting on some of the editing cutbacks and rearrangements there. Not only does he manage to get in "Gadarene," he has this wonderful quote from his boss when he asked for a pay raise for handling the especially difficult copy from a star reporter: “His job is to provide the words, but your function is to provide the music. Now piss off.”

Those pesky directions

Fev, at Heads Up the Blog, spotlighted a wee little error in the NYT in an article on the reunion of the crew and passengers who were aboard the USAir flight that ditched into the Hudson River a year ago.

Forty degrees 46 minutes 10.19 seconds north latitude, 74 degrees 16.69 seconds south latitude: Michael Leonard had been there before.

Oops, as the Times' corrections column later noted.

An article on Saturday about a reunion of the passengers and crew aboard the US Airways jet that crash-landed onto the Hudson River a year ago misstated the location of the crash and the event that occurred 90 seconds into the flight. The crash was at 40 degrees 46 minutes 10.19 seconds north latitude, and 74 degrees 16.69 seconds west longitude — not south latitude. It was the intake of geese by the plane’s engines that took place at the 90-second mark, not the crash itself.

Problem is, it's not just enough to acknowledge the correction, you have to correct the correction correctly too (just follow along now ...). Look closely:



Yep. Now it's "west latitude."

Is there a Boy Scout with a compass anywhere near the Times' HQ? If so, be a good lad and do a good deed by dropping in and helping out the folks, will ya?

Someone please buy the copy desk a map

I'm not sure why The (Columbia, S.C.) State has such trouble with where the property is that was at one time going to be the new state farmers market, until that deal fell apart.

In a recent story, the paper blared in a headline that a deal had been reached "on Bluff Road land." Only the land is not on Bluff Road as explained later in the story - it's on Pineview Road. (While Bluff Road is nearby, you'd be hard-pressed to find a story referring to it as the "Bluff Road site.") Perhaps the confusion is because the current market is on Bluff Road near the state fairgrounds, several miles away from the Pineview Road site (see below). But the deal to sell that site to the University of South Carolina has long since been made.
Then in a story this past week, the same reporter writes, and the desk lets through, that the land (now called "the Shop Road park" because it is at Shop and Pineview roads) is "nearly five miles northwest of the S.C. State Fairgrounds."



No, the fairgrounds are five miles northwest of the land, but the land is east-southeast of downtown (which is where the fairgrounds are). See this Google map, which is oriented north to start with.

Neither item has been corrected, that I have seen.

I fear this is just more evidence of the evisceration of editing.

Gaston, Gadsden, what's in a name?

But when get a basic fact of a murder story - where the suspect comes from -- incorrect in big display type, have the moxie to say we screwed up and correct it, as well as getting it right the next cycle.

Here's the latest example from the "your job is to separate out the homophones and know enough geography of your city to recognize that road doesn't go there" file.

Appearing in Saturday's edition of the local broadsheet and fishwrap was this screamer:

But on Sunday came this:

That last one may be a little small for you, but the deck says "Gadsden man." (Bluff Road, which is his address, goes nowhere near Gaston. In the map Bluff Road, where the suspect, lived is on the far right. Gaston is on the far left down U.S. 321 -- you might need to click on the photo to see a larger version.)

Gadsden is corrrect.

But no correction. I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. when you screw it up as badly as this, you need to do a formal correction. So far, haven't seen any.

The paper ran the correction on Tuesday. So let's see: Error in display type on Sautrday; correct information on Sunday; correction Tuesday? This is 2009. Why not just have said in Sunday's article "we got it wrong Saturday" and move on? Rapid transparency.

Getting a different mindset about corrections and changes

It's the online era. Things have a long life - far longer online than in newspapers or on broadcast.

Yet we still seem to be of the newspaper mindset -- if something is wrong take it down, purge it, but don't provide any easy-to-find connections (think about the fact that most of your newspaper's corrections are on some inside page instead of on the front of the section where the article appeared). And it's even worse in broadcast where the operative mindset still seems to be ignore most errors - we can just get it right in the next newscast.

That's not good enough anymore. Changes have to be transparent. Learn to use the "strikethrough" code in HTML to show most changes (for legal reasons, libelous ones may have to be purged).

Corrections have to be linked back to the original article, and if you are going to purge something, the correction/explanation needs to be at the URL of the original.

For some insight on why, read this E-media Tidbits post by Amy Gahran from early December*. And read the comments from a person also caught in the tangle of an article that started out online and was changed before going into print.

It seems to me a couple of things are in order:

• If you put an article online and think it might need to be updated, etc. (for instance, as in the case of the aggrieved commenter above, an article rushed online to avoid being scooped), consider using a wiki so that all changes can be tracked.
• (I know I'm being Pollyannaish here, but we're far enough into the 21st century that any reasonably competent modern publishing system should allow users to switch among a blog, a standard "story" unit and a wiki easily.)
  
• Start updating newsroom work flows and mindsets so that a correction is generally not seen as a traumatic thing but a natural outcome of the evolving way we are publishing online (keeping in mind that some will be more severe and may require management intervention).
• Set up guidelines for transparency. These should include:
• Clear refer lines atop stories to any further clarifying material, and a link on the clarification/correction back to the original.
• Striking out, not eliminating, most disputed text.
• Corrections at the original URL, or some kind of redirect, if the original has to be purged for legal reasons.
• Versioning of stories being developed online with the ability to track back as in a wiki.
• The ability for anyone in the newsroom to question something and the decision-making on whether to update pushed down as low as possible in the supervisory chain -- much as any worker on an auto assembly line can stop it by pulling a "defect" switch.
• Finally, a concerted effort is needed from publishers, broadcasters, etc., to get the courts to recognize and accommodate the technological realities. Fact is, in too many jurisdictions the company lawyers are concerned -- and in some, rightly so -- that current law makes it risky to be transparent.

The courts have shown themselves to be about a decade behind in refashioning the law to respond to major technological changes. We're about due for a spate of digital cases that could help redefine online and how it is used for at least two more decades (think of the Gatehouse suit against Boston.com just this week over "deep linking.")

Newsrooms need to get their acts in order and then be prepared to press the case to bring more of our case law and common law into the digital age.

--------
* Yes, early December. I'm a little behind on the reading.

Editor needed, Stat!

You know, when you're one of the biggest companies keeping track of things on the Web, as Nielsen boasts, well it kind of hurts your credibility a bit when you can't get the name of a Web site right. I mean, after all, you're supposed to be tracking those things, right?

So we turn to the Nielsen blog, where one Greg Hay adds his two cents to the dust up between AP and the Drudge Retort. (Basically, he's speculating that the calls for a blog boycott against AP might not be all that effective.)

Only, take a look at the two graphics below. See anything out of whack?


Yep, roger that Rubber Ducky. We've got us an editorial train wreck. As a matter of fact, the Drudge Report is one of the most widely visited sites on the Web. Didn't Hay or someone else at Nielsen think it a bit suspicious that even in its moment of glory, the "Report" was not moving the needle all that much? Not only is it in the graphic, but it's throughout Hay's blog post.

Get me an editor, stat! Oh, a little late to save this patient, but maybe Nielsen might think about hiring a copy editor or two; there are several laid off ones who might like the work.

Juen 25:
The post has now been corrected to reflect Drudge Retort. The beauty of the Web. As famously said, "We can fact-check your ass."

Cleanup in the history aisle, please

The well-worn saying is that those who fail to heed history are doomed to repeat it.

This recent effort by the Wall Street Journal, however, shows that those who go about repeating it need to remember to study it carefully first.

There was a little factual spillage in the Nov. 15 Wonder Land column by Daniel Henninger, "1968: The Long Goodbye." And apparently all the copy editors had gone on break and there was no one to clean it up. (Warning: Parts of the online offering have since been cleaned up, but as of this posting there still is enough mayhem for a good frolic through the history books -- or, as those of us my age like to call it, recent memory.)

Here's part of the story. OK, boys and girls, how many potholes, booby traps and improvised factual devices can you find:

The year began with sales of the Beatles album, "Magical Mystery Tour." In retrospect, it was a premonition. In late January, North Korea captured the USS Pueblo and crew members. A week later, the North Vietnamese army launched the Tet offensive. On Feb. 27, Walter Cronkite announced on CBS News that the U.S. had to negotiate a settlement to the Vietnam War. On March 12, Sen. Gene McCarthy defeated incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, aided by antiwar students that Sen. McCarthy called his "children's crusade." Two weeks later, LBJ announced on TV that he would not run for re-election. One week later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was only April 4.

There were race riots everywhere. On April 24, students occupied five buildings at Columbia University, protesting the war. In May bloody student riots erupted in France, likely witnessed by the impressionable Mr. Sarkozy.

On July 3, Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol in a New York City loft. The next day, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In August, the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia. Seven days later, antiwar demonstrators at the Democratic convention fought pitched battles with the Chicago police.

On Nov. 4, having absorbed all this, the people of the United States voted. They gave 43.4% of their vote to Richard Nixon and 42.7% to Hubert Humphrey. Alabama Gov. George Wallace got 13.5%. Four years later, George Wallace was shot dead while running for president. 1968 lasted a long time.

The big clunker, of course, is the notation that Wallace was shot "dead." He was wounded and paralyzed, and lived 30 more years. That alone was enough of a red flag that a copy editor should have dived in.

The second thing that most any student of U.S. politics (i.e., copy editors) should have known was that Eugene McCarthy did not beat LBJ. He came within 7 percentage points, convincing Johnson that maybe it was time to hang up the presidential spurs.

But wait, there's more!

• With the New Hampshire primary on March 12, saying LBJ made his announcement "two weeks later" is stretching it a bit. He made the announcement March 31, 19 days later, or almost three weeks.
• Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol on June 3, not July 3.
• Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, not Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is the former attorney general's son.
• The assassination was June 5, not June 4 as the wording after the Warhol shooting misstep would lead you to believe (had the date been right to start with).
• The general election that year was Nov. 5, not Nov. 4
  

And a point of interpretation: Though the article says the Columbia occupation was April 24, the march to Morningside Park and subsequent occupation of Hamilton Hall, I believe, was April 23. It was the morning of the 24th that the groups agreed to spread out and occupy other buildings, moving into the president's office in Low Library.

Wonder Land indeed -- you wonder how this got through a normally well-edited paper.

The sad thing is that the Wall Street Journal has, as of this posting, only officially corrected the McCarthy error. A change to the Wallace wording, to say he was wounded, was slipped into the online version without acknowledgment the original was wrong. And none of the other items has been touched.

Let's hope little Johnny or Janie don't decided to pull this one out of the archives for that school assignment. I can hear it now: "But Teach, the facts ate my homework."

Quick hits

• Mark Glaser has a thorough look in Media Shift on the need to -- and problems of -- hiring "journalism" computer programmers into newsrooms, including how the industry's anti-intellectualism figures into that.
• Found Robin Good's nice guide to Web sites that let you edit video.
  
• ESPN does what too few media organizations still don't do -- establishes a central online corrections site and pledges to keep it updated. (Original tip from Regret the Error.)
• Andrew Grant Adamson over at Wordblog does a good job rounding up the debate over current journalism education and where we all go with this. Andy Dickinson chimes in, too.
• Howard Owens has some excellent observations from the Inland Press Association meeting. One of the existing themes seems to be that newspapers aren't doing enough to drive their existing readers to the Web. Hmmmmm....
• A(nother) new report on citizen journalism (PDF printable vsn)-- this one looking at how news organizations are slowly bringing the community into the conversation.It comes from Dan Gillmor's organization Center for Citizen Media. Nicole Stockdale and I are scheduled to reprise our Blogging for Editors presenation at the ACES meeting in Miami next month. But just three years after we started it, it's starting to sound old. As the report's exec summary puts it: As traditional journalism organizations move onto the Web, they are learning to do more than re-publish the work they’ve printed or broadcast. The first forays into conversational journalism were blogs written by staff members, a genre now so widespread that it’s getting difficult to find a news organization without staff blogs.