Writing Wrongs in the Corrrections Column
New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent makes a proposal that may be more subversive than he realizes. The NYT, like most newspapers, has been in the habit of running corrections for a few decades. The problem with the corrections column, which appears on page 2, is that the big blunders are mixed in with the misspelling and other errors that that, while regrettable, do not alter understanding. Further, Editors' Notes, a category of correction used for particularly grave admissions such as the Times mea culpa about coverage of issues leading up to the war in Iraq, are used infrequently. Okrent's point is that there is a realm of error between the grave Editors' Note and the misspelled proper name that gets conflated, and hence minimized. Citing the relatively innocuous correction the Times published to explain that the hurricane-plagued beachfront area straddling Florida and Alabama is called "Flora-Bama, not Floribama," Okrent explains why such a mistake conceptually different than others the paper cited recently:
For instance, on Thursday, one correction indicated that an Iranian official had not warned that his country might produce "highly enriched uranium, which is used in nuclear weapons," but might "resume suspended efforts to produce enriched uranium, the form that can power nuclear reactors." The mistake may have been as innocent as the Flora-Bama fumble, but relative to a reader's understanding of the original story, the difference between reactor-grade uranium and weapons-grade uranium is more serious by a factor of, oh, several million. Not nearly as serious, but also meaningful to a reader's comprehension, the same corrections column noted that the rate of New York City children hospitalized for asthma in 2003 was 6.5 per 1,000, not 6.5 per 100,000. That's a difference with a distinction.
Okrent is on-target with his diagnosis and remedy, but my bet is that the Times and other newspapers would be more hesistant to move forward with a new category of corrections for reasons of journalism authority that Okrent does not discuss, even as he doesn't see his proposal getting enacted anytime soon. In some cases, the fix seems straightforward: Put the clear distortions and incorrect information like the asthma rate or grade of uranium in Iran in the same corrections column but grouped separate from the misspellings.
Before explaining why such a fix opens the door to more issues, let me point out that that newspaper editors could make a strong argument that the goal of 100% accuracy means that misspelling and misstatements are equally egregious. (That's what I tell my journalism students. )But current practices allow newspapers to admit wrong to a certain point without calling much attention to the daily mistakes. The page design is the equivalent of drowning people with paperwork when the goal is to evade questions or scrutiny. A new category would open the door for more contention over facts and interpretations of "truth," further eroding journalistic authority.
Scholarly audits of newspaper accuracy that have focused on the use of numbers and attempted to reconcile reporters and sources claims have put general accuracy at about 60%. Such studies are limited, and there haven't been many, so I'd want to keep this number in perspective. What Okrent overlooks is the broader fiction of the corrections column, which is asking the reader to believe that it is a representation of the main mistakes that the newspaper has made over the week. The Editors Notes, which often play catch-up after long stretches of abuse or errors of omission, make clear that there is are worlds of facts and interpretations that don't make it into the newspaper when it might make a difference. Not knowing what we don't know is the real information-age problem.
10:40:12 AM 
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