I recently read a piece from the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) called “Best practices in digital accuracy and correction“. It speaks to the challenges of publishing in a 24 by 7 online environment and following the guiding rule of “When we make a mistake, we correct it promptly and ungrudgingly, and in a manner that matches the seriousness of the error.”
The report speaks of 3 principles:
- Published digital content is part of the historical record and should not be unpublished. News organizations do not rewrite history or make news disappear.
- Accuracy is the foundation of media credibility. Though we should resist unpublishing, we have a responsibility to ensure the accuracy of all published content. If we err, or if new relevant facts emerge, we should publish correctives and/or update online articles as soon as we verify errors and/or new information.
- Transparency demands that we are clear with audiences about changes that have been made to correct/amend or update digital content. We should not “scrub” digital content, that is, simply fix it and hope that no one has noticed.
Craig Silverman, founder of the website, regrettheerror.com, is quoted contending “that acknowledging inaccuracy is even more essential in the digital world because errors are “now forever” as they are cached online and spread worldwide through search engines and social media.”
The best practices are available in pdf format as well.
On Friday afternoon, CBC took a story by Luann Lasalle of Canadian Press and made a number of errors when posting it to its Technology& Science page:
- CBC applied an inaccurate headline, “Rogers tells CRTC to level telecom rules”. I doubt that Rogers would have told the CRTC to level the rules; Industry Canada is the organization that has been reviewing the rules. The CRTC doesn’t make laws – Rogers knows this and the CBC should as well. The story itself doesn’t mention the CRTC.
- CBC added an old stock photo (apparently from Rogers AGM in April) and applied an incorrect caption “Rogers Communications Chief Executive Nadir Mohamed urged the CRTC to apply foreign ownership rules equally to all telecom players.” Again – it was not the CRTC that would have been urged and the caption implies that this photo was taken during the briefing.
- CBC edited the Canadian Press story and changed Industry Minister Christian Paradis’ name to Pierre. Perhaps they were thinking of the Liberal Quebec MNA.
I used the CBC Typo Report capability on its website at about 4:15pm and tweeted an alert to the errors as well. CBC updated the story at 4:48, but it did not correct the errors that had been brought to their attention more than a half hour earlier.
The article has attracted a large number of comments and the errors have generated comments. For example, ImPaled wrote at 9:49am on Saturday morning: “A private corporation like robbin rogers tells a Canadian citizens watchdog comittee the CRTC what to do?”
At the time of writing this, the errors have been on the CBC website for 19 hours and attracted 71 comments. What is the appropriate way to deal with flaws, given that the bell cannot be un-rung? As the CAJ’s Best Practices suggest, it would be inappropriate to “simply fix it and hope that no one has noticed.”
CBC’s corrections policy states:
We make every effort to avoid errors on the air and online. In keeping with values of accuracy, integrity and fairness, we do not hesitate to correct a significant error when we have been able to establish that one has occurred. This is essential for our credibility with Canadians. When a correction is necessary, it is made promptly given the circumstances, with due regard for the reach of published error.
The fact that a situation has evolved so that information that was accurate at the time of its publication is no longer accurate does not mean that an error was committed, but we must consider the appropriateness of updating it, taking into account its importance and impact.
In the olden days, editors and fact checkers would find errors in advance of publication. Today, very few fact checkers are employed at all, let alone getting involved in screening material in advance.
What are your expectations for dealing with corrections from your news sources?
UPDATE [November 27, 11:30am]: Nearly 48 hours later, CBC has still not edited the story or made the most basic correction: getting the name of the Industry Minister right. I checked other news outlets to see if any others used an incorrect name for the Minister, thinking that maybe the CBC wasn’t really responsible for the errors; maybe an early version of the Canadian Press story got it wrong. But in every other case, news outlets across the country carried the story correctly identifying the Minister of Industry and not having any mention of the CRTC. Sympatico, Winnipeg Free Press online, Winnipeg Free Press print edition, The Record, News Radio 957, Medicine Hat News, Penticton Herald, Guelph Mercury all got the story right. Some ran the story with edits, most ran the full text. None said that Rogers CEO Nadir Mohamed said anything to the CRTC. No other news outlet messed up the name of the Industry Minister.
Which then raises the question of how did the CBC get it wrong and why? And why hasn’t CBC fixed the story yet?
UPDATE [November 27, 8:30pm]: In an update to the story time-stamped 6:19pm today, CBC finally changed “Pierre Paradis” to “Christian Paradis”, and added a “Correction & Clarification” below the story, saying “Christian Paradis is the federal minister of trade. He was misidentified as Pierre Paradis in an earlier version of this story.” Except that Canada doesn’t have a Minister of Trade. Ed Fast is the Minister of International Trade while Christian Paradis is Minister of Industry (as well as Minister of State (Agriculture)).
UPDATE [November 27, 10:00pm]: Minister Paradis’ portfolio was corrected at 9:20pm. Why monitor this particular story? Perhaps because it demonstrates how shoddy the editing and review process has become for some media sources and how slowly some agencies respond to clear errors. In the meantime, thousands of viewers saw the erroneous information and hundreds wrote comments, many in direct response to the incorrect account that CBC presented. Most will not return to the story to see the correction.
UPDATE [November 28, 8:35am]: CBC has finally fixed the article, removing references to the CRTC. Instead of the headline “Rogers tells CRTC to level telecom rules”, CBC now has the story titled “Rogers asks to level telecom rules.” A very different tone implicit in that change, but the story now appears at the bottom of the Technology and Science page, since it is 3 days old at this point.
It makes me wonder: is it sufficient for CBC to simply note (at the bottom of the original story) that the current version contains a correction?