NEWSPAPER corrections are a good thing and a bad thing. Too many are a bad thing, but because of human error there are at least a limited number of the embarrassing notes that will have to run. They're a good thing because the newspaper is correcting the record and informing the public.
So when I chastise the paper for having had too many corrections in recent days, I want to be careful. I don't want to deter the paper from running corrections -- on the contrary, it's imperative for the integrity of the paper to do so. Otherwise, it will lose readers' trust.
Still, it bothers me on a certain level when it seems like every day there's something very wrong in the paper. Some were relatively mild errors. Others were much more serious.
Maybe the drag of the semester is getting to the weary editors and reporters who put the paper together every day. Maybe it's that more readers are reporting errors to the paper. There's likely no one reason that can be singled out as to why there are more corrections these days.
Before I go any further, I want to give kudos to the paper for quickly and thoroughly coming clean when there is an error. I was very impressed when I first visited the paper's Web site and saw that the first thing listed under "resources" of the paper was "corrections." They show they truly do care about the paper's reputation -- but more importantly, about getting it right.
Unfortunately, this attentiveness in print doesn't always translate to the Web site.
I have three technical suggestions: Make sure that every single day the latest corrections appear in the proper section of the Web site. I've had a hard time finding a few corrections because they were misplaced on the site. For example, Thursday's correction regarding the Oct. 19 news article, "Professor responds to cheating," can be found under the "news" section of the site but not the "corrections" part.
Also, make sure every correction that runs in the paper is online. Far-flung readers like me -- and judging by the amount of mail I get from parents, there are many of them -- will never know that an article includes incorrect material if it's not corrected in a timely fashion online as well as in print. Occasionally I've noticed a Cavalier Daily correction that somehow never made it online.
Finally, unlike print, Web sites can be altered after they are published. It's imperative that if an article on a Web site is changed, a note appears letting readers know of the change, alerting those who had read it before that something is different. Newspapers chose various ways to handle corrections online. The most appropriate I have seen is having a note about the correction appear either right on top of the article or just off to the side at the top of the page, saying when and in what manner the text was changed.
There's no need to repeat mistakes. If John Doe's name was incorrectly spelled Jon Doe, just say that John Doe's name was spelled incorrectly when the article was originally published, and corrected on Monday morning at 11:03 a.m., and The Cavalier Daily regrets the error. That way, the most casual reader has no chance of being confused as to what's right.
Taking a sample of what went wrong in this week's paper, it doesn't seem that there are any patterns that emerge.
The Oct. 19 article had a mischaracterization of the news in the headline. An Oct 17 article, "Bloggers reshape coverage of college issues," misquoted a professor. The two words, accident and incident, are not the worst of words to have switched up. But nonetheless, reading the quote again the reporter should have stopped and questioned if what she was hearing was accurate.
The most egregious error was when in Thursday's paper the subheadline misidentified a man accused of being a peeping Tom ("Man charged with peeping near U.Va."). Instead, it named a police detective. Oops.
I know from experience that even when you think you're being as careful as possible, reading over each name closely and checking things off, errors can still get by. Bottom line? Editors and reporters must actively ask themselves, "Is this right? No, really, check. Is this right?" Most of the time, newspaper people will get burned on the most casual items -- more infrequently on WMD-type issues.
Try different methods. Reporters might want to always carry a notebook and tape recorder, just as a backup. Maybe going over articles with a highlighter will help. I know reporters at The Boston Globe who print out their stories when they're done, highlight each fact, check it and then read the story backwards to keep themselves alert.
Whatever works, try it. If something still gets by, do the right thing and continue to fess up in print and online to the mistake. And readers, keep The Cavalier Daily on its toes and take the 30 seconds to e-mail in a found correction to the editors. They really do appreciate it.
Lisa Fleisher can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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