Temple: Once in print, there are no mulligans

Published January 14, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Opinion Columns & Blogs

More stories »

One axiom of newspapering is that if it's possible to get something wrong, eventually we will.

I don't say that lightly.

We care deeply about accuracy, but it's my experience that if you process as many words and pictures as we do on tight deadlines, things happen. Things that we wish we could have to do over again.

Here are a few such examples from the past year, culled from the annual accuracy report prepared by Managing Editor Deb Goeken and distributed to our staff this week:

• Spellcheck changed the name of Leucadia National Corp. to La-De-Da National Corp. And we published it.

• A headline mistakenly said Ken Lowe is president of the Rocky Mountain News. I'm the president. Lowe actually is a whole lot more; he's the president of the E. W. Scripps Co., which owns the paper.

• We identified former Avalanche player Steve Moore's attorney as Ted Danson - perhaps someone had just watched a rerun of Cheers - instead of Tim Danson.

At the Rocky, our policy is to correct errors we notice ourselves or that are brought to our attention by readers. Not only is it the right thing to do, but if we didn't, our electronic archive would contain inaccurate information that very probably would be picked up and repeated in future stories.

We direct all calls, e-mails or letters requesting a correction to Deb, who investigates and determines whether action is merited.

The person responsible for any error must fill out a form providing the particulars, including the circumstances that led to the mistake. That form is approved by their supervisor and reviewed by Deb, who maintains a database of every error, which we use to track trends and measure our performance.

In 2005, one of our biggest problems was mathematical mistakes. We had a run of flubs that showed we didn't have a good system to ensure that our computations were accurate or that data provided by news sources was correct.

• We said if you put $5,000 down on a $100,000 home and the house appreciates 10 percent, it would be a 100 percent increase of your equity. Of course, it's really a 200 percent increase.

• We reported 38 of every 1,000 homes in Colorado are in foreclosure. It was really 3.8 of every 1,000 homes.

• We wrote that eight-tenths of a percent was 0.08 percent, instead of 0.8 percent.

Deb and I were so concerned about our mathematical literacy that we asked the dean of the University of Colorado journalism school, Paul Voakes, to help by conducting seminars for editors. Paul is the co-author of Working with Numbers and Statistics: A Handbook for Journalists, which was published last year. We bought a number of copies of his book and distributed them around the newsroom as a reference tool. And then, after consulting with all the departments, we instituted a new policy. I'm not one who believes written rules are the answer to every problem. But in this case they provide a path to follow that gives us a greater likelihood of achieving our goal.

The policy states:

1. With the exception of routine sports and business stories, all numbers in stories must be cq'd (cq is an acronym for correct) by the reporter and the originating editor. This means that originating editors must actually see the original data or document, when practical.

2. When we do math to come up with a premise or conclusion for a story, the reporter and originating editor must agree on the method and explain it to a non-union manager, who must sign off before work begins on the story.

3. A short explanation of the mathematical method that was used must be attached to the story. The story's copy editor also must sign off on the reasoning.

4. It's advisable to consult a math expert for anything but the most basic analysis. If in doubt, ask.

5. Copy editors must do the addition, subtraction, etc. on which a story is based and cq the finding.

6. Numbers in graphics and photo captions should be treated the same as numbers in stories.

After implementing this policy in October, we've seen a decline in the number of numerical errors.

So how did we do overall in 2005?

We had 577 corrections, up 6.1 percent from 2004.

We've actually seen our total grow every year since the managing editor took over responsibility for corrections.

I believe that's because we have become more quick to correct mistakes, not because we're actually making more.

It's another axiom of journalism that good newspapers run more corrections than bad ones.

Some might say that's a way to rationalize a negative trend. But I know it's a statement that won't need a correction.

Righting the wrongs

Although the Rocky has had its fair share of embarrassing mistakes in print - misstating the title of Scripps President Ken Lowe, below right, and saying staffer Bob Findlay was in a photo he took, below left - we correct them by filling out an electronic form, bottom, sent to Managing Editor Deb Goeken.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 100 Gene Amole Way, Denver, CO 80204.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News