Why place blame on corrections?
Question: Is it really necessary to place blame in your corrections? What's the thinking supporting that policy? -- Nancy Darnell
Answer: It's not a question of placing blame, it's a question of identifying responsibility, within the newsroom and without. Corrections are an important element in establishing credibility with readers. But we know, anecdotally and through considerable national research on newspaper credibility, that readers want to know how mistakes are made. Was it a reporter error? Was the error introduced in the editing process, victimizing an accurate reporter? Was the source of the mistake external to the newsroom? Furthermore, in the digital age, corrections, like original stories, have indefinite life. Itís important that corrections provide ALL relevant information in the interest of historical completeness. -- Steve Smith, editor