OOPS!

The ins and outs of news media corrections

- by Lee Gjertsen Malone

MOST PRINT newspapers and magazines run corrections. These note mistakes both large and small. But as more people read news online, corrections face big changes.

"A correction is something news outlets do to set the record straight," says Anne Glover. She worked as a digital content editor and taught at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in Florida. The institute publishes lists of the worst—and the funniest—new corrections.

Not Always Right

How often are stories wrong? Scott Maier is a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communications. He researched errors and corrections in the news media. His study looked at 4,800 news stories and found errors in about 60 percent of them. "Errors are more common than journalists believe," he says.

Most mistakes in the news are quite small. Think a misspelled name. Why print corrections? Maier says it's to convey the idea that "we may not always get it right, but when we do make an error, we correct it prominently, and we correct it quickly."

As It's Happening