AFTER DEADLINE
We take it seriously when we err in print
By Anne Harpham
Beginnings and endings are times for reflection.
And so with 2005 just beginning, it is time to look back at the corrections and clarifications we published over the past year.
We printed 575 corrections and clarifications throughout 2004, down from the previous year's tally of 610.
The corrections ranged from strange bloopers to misstatements of facts and getting people's names wrong.
One of the odder errors was misspelling the name of the well-known river that flows through the center of Paris, a river most school children know is the Seine. We spelled it Sienne.
Admission Day was renamed Statehood Day back in 2001, but in August we goofed and called it Admission Day.
The mistake that prompted a lot of calls was identifying a calf as a goat in a photo caption. Readers were either laughing or just plain incredulous when they phoned.
While we can laugh at our sillier miscues, we take very seriously the errors that misstate facts, mischaracterize events, misspell names, get phone numbers wrong, and give the wrong time for events or the wrong place.
We know that we cannot publish a newspaper 365 days a year without mistakes. Some mistakes are not of our making. Sometimes we are given incorrect information from trusted sources. And sometimes there is a misunderstanding between sources and reporters or editors. And sometimes we fail to check information because of the press of deadline or a brain lapse.
While there are some errors difficult to avoid despite our best efforts, many are avoidable. It is for that reason that we have an in-house process to account for those errors. Those involved, reporters, editors, copy editors, page designers and artists, are asked for an explanation and to offer their thoughts on how the error could have been avoided.
And we have reinforced in-house procedures to catch errors before they get in print.
In 2004, we significantly reduced the number of incorrect phone numbers. Our goal is to have no wrong phone numbers. We didn't quite make it, but we corrected wrong phone numbers 16 times in 2003. In the past year, we managed to cut that error rate significantly. Just six of our corrections last year were for wrong phone numbers.
Reporters and editors are required to call every number in a story to verify it before using it. In a busy day and on deadline it can be easy to rationalize that away. But we also recognize how inconvenient it is when we publish a wrong number, so we're serious about that rule.
I also want to acknowledge that there are some missteps that we make that do not warrant corrections but still are taken seriously.
Readers call when they spot misused punctuation or misspellings, or when we haven't told them in a timely fashion about community events or whether there will be a trash pickup on a holiday.
Our resolution in the newsroom is to not forget that the daily copy of The Honolulu Advertiser is a part of people's daily lives, and to do all we can to continue to be a relevant part of your life.
Happy New Year!
Anne Harpham is The Advertiser's reader representative. Reach her at aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8033.
