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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, April 8, 2001


Let us know when we make mistakes

By John Simonds
The Advertiser's reader representative

To err is human. To admit error is difficult. To correct as quickly as possible is essential, though not always as easy as it seems. What's really hard is to work effectively in the heat of daily news activity without making mistakes. That's the daily goal.

The Advertiser takes correcting errors seriously. "Our corrections policy is designed to tell readers as quickly as possible when we have published inaccurate information," says The Advertiser's editor, Saundra Keyes. "Sometimes an error is called to our attention by a reader and sometimes by a staff member."

The Advertiser's Code of Ethics says: "Mistakes should be corrected promptly and candidly. It is impossible to avoid all errors; it is essential to correct errors and admit when we erred." Readers who find errors in The Advertiser are urged to call or e-mail either the page editors whose names and numbers appear at the top right of each section cover page or the reader representative at 525-8033 or jsimonds@honolulu.gannett.com.

In 2000 The Advertiser published more than 400 corrective items. For the first quarter of 2001, The Advertiser has published 127 corrections, compared with 101 in the same three months last year.

These are in addition to obituaries that were republished to correct mistakes, or corrections that may have appeared in specific sections. Sports, for example, publishes corrections on its own pages.

Sports errors typically occur in write-ups or summaries of local school contests or weekend athletic events. Curtis Murayama, Advertiser sports editor, notes that his staff relies on coaches, volunteer scorers and statisticians who phone or send in results nearly every day.

People who spot something inaccurate in a local sports story can call Advertiser sports at 525-8017 and/or the reader rep, but another way, Murayama says, is to notify the scoring officials who submitted the results and ask them to verify and transmit the corrected information.

Advertiser editors discuss apparent errors and requests for corrections with the writers of the articles, headlines or captions.

Once it's determined a mistake has occurred — rather than a matter of opinion or semantics — a correction is written, reviewed by a section editor and, in some cases, by a senior-level editor, before being published.

Advertiser corrections differ from those of other newspapers in that the origin of an error usually is identified, not by name but by the person's role in the news process — a reporter, an editor or a news source. A few readers have asked why The Advertiser does this.

Executive editor Jim Kelly says it adds another level of accountability. "It lets readers know if the mistake was made by a reporter, editor, photographer and so on," says Kelly. "That, in turn, presumably makes the staff members a bit more careful in checking facts."

The New York Times sets one of the higher industry standards for correcting and clarifying. Times corrections explain more about the nature of the mistakes, so readers may understand where the wrong part was in the story they read the day before. Too often in other newspapers, corrections are so cryptic that readers are obliged to revisit the errant text to figure out what was wrong.

"We try to write the correction in a way that avoids repeating the error, but that gives enough context that readers can discern what story we're talking about," Keyes says. "We recently re-ran an entire chart on census results because we thought a one-sentence correction would not be clear to readers."

In a business where thousands of quick decisions go into gathering and presenting information each day, the odds favor making mistakes more than in other callings.

Beyond measure are the potential miscues caught by desk editors, copy editors and writers themselves. It's an excuse newsroom people seldom make in their own defense, but it's a point worth remembering.

Call 525-8033 if you detect an error.

Some readers look for the big ones, and others have a keen eye for the specific, whether it's the wrong job title for Vice President Dick Cheney a few days ago or the wrong first name for Ezio Pinza two Sundays ago. The Advertiser says thanks for your close attention and your calls.