corrections policies
In journalism, a correction is the notice that a news outlet provides to its audience of mistakes in published or posted content. Reporters and editors identify or are informed about errors and then follow their organization’s policy—an adopted newsroom practice typically found in its codes of conduct—in correcting published, posted, or broadcast content. Reputations of news organizations rely on truthful reports, so factual accuracy is paramount. Otherwise, journalism may be perceived as misleading the audience, prompting people to turn to other sources of information that may be tainted by self-interest rather than public interest. In this entry, the history and ethics of corrections policies in U.S. news organizations are explored, with discussion of policies and procedures in place at different types of news outlets. The entry concludes by discussing some of the challenges of correcting errors in the 21st century and recommendations that have been made for improving corrections policies.
Some journalism mistakes are so egregious that they make rather than document history. The 1948 presidential election featured New York Gov. Thomas Dewey, a Republican, against President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat. On November 3, the Chicago Daily Tribune carried this erroneous headline: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. In actuality, Truman had won the election. The Tribune blamed polls that predicted an easy Dewey win. At the time, there was a printer’s strike that forced the newspaper to go to press earlier than usual, prompting then managing editor J. Loy “Pat” Maloney to call the election before East Coast results were tallied. The mistake was immortalized in media history when Truman was photographed holding up a copy of the first edition with the infamous Dewey headline. Some 150,000 copies of the newspaper were printed before the error was corrected in the second edition.
In the United States, the idea that news organizations have a responsibility to inform the citizenry can be traced to 1690 in the first colonial American newspaper, Publick Occurrences: Both Forreign and Domestick. Benjamin Harris, printer, stated that he would publish “what we have reason to believe is true,” adding “when there appears any material mistake it shall be corrected.” The Massachusetts Bay Colony, concerned that officials would be held accountable, shut down his paper after the first edition, requiring similar publications to be licensed before disseminating and distributing content.
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A generation later, in 1733, John Peter Zenger published a report in the New York Weekly Journal, accusing royal Gov. William S. Crosby of rigging elections. Zenger was arrested and accused of seditious libel or content that challenged the authority of the state. The case helped to establish a precedent for the development of subsequent corrections policies inasmuch as it upheld accurate reporting as a defense against claims of libel. At the time, English courts elevated authority over truth, believing the greater the truth, the greater the libel. Defense attorney Andrew Hamilton successfully argued for “the liberty both of exposing and opposing arbitrary power by speaking and writing truth.” The John Peter Zenger case elevated factual truth over royal authority, setting the stage for the American Revolution as well as setting the standards for accurate journalism.
Accountability
The ethical principle associated with corrections is accountability. It ensures credibility. Fallibility is common in every institution or organization but those whose mission is associated with credibility have an obligation to be accountable to the publics they serve. Devising accountability policies and standards that address mistakes and errors not only enhances credibility but also reaffirms quality and reputation while reducing the likelihood of future mistakes.
Humans make mistakes. Reporters make mistakes every day. They may misspell a name, cite the wrong address, misquote a source, or otherwise misrepresent key attributes of a story. Sometimes, reviewing their posted or published work, the reporter catches the mistake. Sometimes readers, viewers, or even colleagues in the same newsroom identify the error and bring it to the reporter’s attention. Increasingly, online fact-checking organizations may dispute a published report or claim made by a source or company. A study by Michelle Amazeen and colleagues noted that fact-checking entities and websites have increased substantially since 2001, analyzing what sources claim in political stories as well as what companies do in marketing and advertising campaigns.
Policies and Procedures
Once an error is detected, reporters are expected to follow newsroom policy and correct the error. At The New York Times, correcting mistakes is an ongoing process with a website updated daily. In a 2018 essay, New York Times corrections editor Rogene Jacquette wrote that the newspaper’s goal is to provide the highest quality journalism possible by telling the audience the truth in a factual manner, adhering to a standard that recognizes an ethical responsibility to correct all errors, no matter how large or small, in a timely manner and prominent place reserved for that purpose.
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The New York Times correction policy also includes instructions on how reporters, editors, and producers should:
- Strive for accurate and complete stories.
- Do so in clear, understandable language, explaining what was wrong.
- Update digital reports, inserting a note that a story has been updated with corrected information.
- Clarify when a report is factually correct but poorly expressed, requiring revision.
- Create an editorial note when a correction raises significant ethical issues or fails to meet editorial standards.
Corrections need to be made in a timely, prominent manner. Prominence is associated with placement of corrections in a section, web page, or portion of a broadcast report that readers, listeners, and viewers can easily locate. Without specifying how prominence should be defined in broadcast reports, the Radio Television Digital News Association states, “Ethical journalism requires owning errors, correcting them promptly and giving corrections as much prominence as the error itself had.” Placement in print typically is in the same section of a newspaper or magazine where the original error occurred or in a specific page where the audience can find it.
Some who work in U.S. print media maintain that a correction should be given the same treatment and prominence as the original flawed article. Craig Silverman, who has written extensively about news media errors and accountability, argues the same principle should apply to the web. The issue there, however, differs from static print; the web is fast and fluid. The Online News Association acknowledges this, noting many print publications “believe a correction should be at least referenced where it first appeared. Rules for how to correct errors in online news are less clear.”
The issue of “timely” also has changed in the Internet era. Typically, timely meant the next issue of a printed publication, such as a newspaper or magazine, or the next news cycle in television or radio. Now all those platforms have websites where corrections can be made within a short time following the discovery of an error. This aspect of corrections provides for more transparency, increasing trust and credibility.
The Washington Post’s corrections policy makes a distinction between updating an online story as events occur and new information is learned and updating the story because of an error that requires notice to readers. The policy states “It is necessary to use a correction, clarification or editor’s note to inform readers whenever we correct a significant mistake.” Serious errors at The Washington Post may require an editor’s note with an explanation of how the mistake may have happened.
A 2007 study by Michael Bugeja found that policies of news media companies on what should be included in a published or broadcast correction vary from company to company. Drawing from multiple studies, Bugeja identified the following as key components of correcting a news story:
- Identify the error (what it was, when and where it occurred).
- Correct the record.
- Do so as soon as possible.
- Do so prominently.
- Provide an explanation to the audience or clientele.
- Disclose how the error could have been avoided and/or how it will be prevented in the future.
- Issue an apology to those damaged by the false disclosure.
Many published corrections omit one or more items from this list, as there is no uniform standard on how to deal with errors. In the end, readers, listeners, and viewers expect that corrections contain genuine expressions of regret rather than justification or excuse-making whose intent might appear to absolve the corporation from liability rather than resolve the issue at hand.
Challenges and Recommendations
The Internet has brought challenges to traditional practices of correcting the record. Social media users routinely share or discuss flawed content without regard to the consequences of inaccuracy. This effect may be associated with differences in standards between traditional and digital media. For instance, traditional print outlets value such tenets as balance, impartiality, gatekeeping, and prepublication verification, whereas digital products often emphasize immediacy, transparency, partiality, and postpublication correction. The nature of digital content is its speed, which distributes mistakes instantaneously and globally.
The interface with social media further disrupts the conventional process of correcting errors. An initial mistake in a report may be shared thousands of times before a correction appears online. In the interim, viewers may have seized upon the initial error in posts, links, and comments, sparking charges that the report was intended to deceive. Moreover, rumors abound on social media. There are few guidelines on how to deal with rumors while upholding conventional values of accuracy, verification, and transparency. However, some newspapers are utilizing social media monitoring tools and are able to see who or what has re-distributed content. Using those applications, reporters, editors, and producers can contact top sharers of content and inform them about updated, accurate reports.
The Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy’s 2019 report Crisis in Democracy: Renewing Trust in America outlined several best practice recommendations for media outlets to restore trust in media and regain credibility. Among the recommendations were:
- Processes to correct errors should be simplified.
- News organizations should make it simpler for the public to report errors.
- More resources should be allotted for staff to respond to requests for corrections.
- Technology should be developed to track the same digital paths that erroneous content traveled, correcting the record along the way.
- Policies should be updated to address new methods of content creation, including corrections in podcasts, voice-activated devices, virtual reality, and augmented reality.
Policies will continue to evolve as platforms become more interactive and algorithmic. Ethicists are concerned that erroneous content from robot journalists could tarnish newsroom reputations, especially when a mistake rises to the level of libel litigation. Questions concern how the courts would assess who or what might be responsible for faulty algorithms or other flaws in system design and whether a robot was negligent or malicious when disseminating libelous content damaging individuals or organizations. Conversely, executives at news organizations using artificial intelligence say they are using robots to report more mundane content, giving human journalists more time to create accurate reports on substantial issues.
The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism.