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• Published digital content is part of the historical record and should not be unpublished.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?

The National Post took aim at York Region parents who picketed their school board offices to protest over WiFi. There is no real science to back up their concerns, just “gossip they read on Twitter, or at the health-food store bulletin board.”

Rarely a day goes by that my inbox doesn’t include a “helpful” message forwarded by a friend or family member asking me if it is true – such as cashiers scamming $20 from a credit card or cockroach eggs in envelop glue – the junk science driving the parental WiFi concern fits into the same category – did you know the origin of the urban legend that you can cook an egg with two cell phones? Be sure to make the call during off-peak, or using an unlimited plan.

I use Snopes.com for checking the answer to frequent “real or hoax” emails. Do you have a favourite site? Or do you forward the messages along?

Today’s CRTC Broadband Report confirms that we are overdue in turning our attention to broadband adoption.

We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to stimulate the extension of networks to rural and remote markets, but that has reached a point of diminishing returns. The Report shows that we spent $225M to subsidize the reach of networks to 214,000 potential customers – roughly $1500 per broadband subscriber, assuming adoption at the national rates.

As I have written before, Montreal has 300,000 households that don’t have a computer. Toronto has 225,000 households with no computer. Vancouver has 100,000 households with no computer. Where there is no computer in the household, it is unlikely that there will be a broadband connection. It is little surprise that household computer ownership is correlated with income.

The Broadband report also shows a disparity in internet use by age and language. While 97% of Francophones aged 18-34 are on-line, apparently they aren’t showing their parents or grandparents why they should be; only 63% of Francophones over the age of 50 are using the internet, contrasted with 74% of anglophones in the same age group.

It is time for a digital strategy that promotes digital literacy and leads to computers getting into Canada’s low income households. We have the plumbing in place: we need to lead more Canadians to the well and teach them how to drink.

Press reports suggest the government may liberalize foreign direct investment in the telecommunications sector by going with Plan B.

When the consultation was first launched (at The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit) three options were set out:

1. The CRTC approach, which would see symmetric liberalization for broadcasting and telecom, but only opening up the market for both sectors to 49% foreign ownership;
2. The approach described by the Telecom Policy Review Panel (TPRP) and endorsed by the Competition Policy Review, which would remove restrictions on telecommunications carriers that have lass than 10% market share;
3. Open the doors to foreign direct investment in all carriers.

A colleague reminded me that Option B is more nuanced than the simple 10% threshold might suggest. As the original foreign investment consultation paper acknowledged, the 10% solution was described by the Telecom Policy Review Panel [report no longer available on-line]:

In the first phase, the Telecommunications Act would be amended to give Cabinet the authority to waive the foreign investment restrictions applicable to a Canadian telecommunications common carrier based on a foreign investment or class of investments being deemed by the Cabinet to be in the public interest. The TPRP proposed that, during the first phase, a presumption should be made that investments in any new start-up telecommunications investment or in any existing telecommunications common carrier with less than 10 percent of the revenue in any telecommunications service market would be in the public interest. This presumption could be rebutted by evidence related to a particular investor or investment.

Prior to the second phase, the TPRP recommended completion of a review of broadcasting policy to resolve issues related to the separation of Canadian policy on broadcasting content from policies for the carriage of telecommunications. It recommended that there should then be a broader liberalization of foreign investment rules in a manner that “treats all telecommunications common carriers including the cable telecommunications industry in a fair and competitively neutral manner.” This liberalization would apply to the carriage business of broadcasting distribution undertakings, while new broadcasting policies would focus any necessary ownership restrictions on content businesses. The Cabinet would retain authority to screen significant investments to ensure they are in the public interest.

In other words, there would be reviews of the ownership by Cabinet, but there would be a presumption of approval in the case of smaller players. Presumably, a larger player could have increased foreign investment, if it can demonstrate the public interest benefit.

Note that the TPRP was clear that foreign investors would remain exempt if they succeed in growing their market share above 10%.

As we await an announcement, we should be aware that there are important subtleties to watch for.

The Christmas crunch is on.

In the wireless segment, this is the season that sees the greatest level of activation activity – meaning that the next 45 days may predict or even determine which service providers will survive on their own for another year. Which devices will win the hearts and minds of consumers? In a tweet, Kaan Yigit said that people may aspire to iPhone, but many settle for an Android.

There are a lot of price plans in the market and it isn’t always easy to compare offers between competing service providers.

I am often asked which service provider is better. Whether it is wireline, wireless, internet or TV, my answer is almost always the same: it depends.

It depends on what you want to do with the device and the service.

A good retailer will help you work through the answers, but it helps if you know what questions to ask. Here are a few that I think are most important.

Most important is confirming whether the service works optimally where you want to use it. Parents of college students need to remember that what works in downtown urban centres may not work in smaller college towns. Price is irrelevant if the thing just isn’t going to connect to the network. Conversely, just because the parents may want the service to roam across Canada or around the world doesn’t mean that the device for your grade school kid needs to.

If it is internet: what kind of speeds will I get at home? If it is mobile phone service: will you get 5 bars at home and along your regular commute? Do you travel? If so, will it work and what will it cost when I am away? Is the device unlocked for me to buy a foreign SIM card?

What kind of things do you want to use the service for? Are you interested in downloading music or watching videos? What kind of data plan is available? How much do I save by signing a contract? What are early termination charges if I change my mind?

I won’t even begin to look at the choice of operating systems on smartphones. That would be wading into a religious debate. But do be sure to consider intra-familial communications. How will the new device fit in with the rest of the household? 

By the way, I had a chance to try out a great phone over the past few weeks. In an age that focuses on full featured smartphones, the Doro is a throwback to another era. Big, easy to read buttons, large text display. If you have parents or grandparents who still don’t have a phone, then consider getting them a Doro or something similar.

As I wrote earlier this week, consumer education beats government intervention. What other questions should consumers be asking when shopping for communications services this season?