(Credit: PIxabay)
The Toronto Star published 1,197 corrections in 2018, Star public editor Kathy English reported.
“In 2018, the Star published 1,197 corrections to remedy errors in print and online content in the Star and StarMetro, just slightly more than last year’s 1,179,” she wrote. “I believe that number should be somewhat higher as it is often difficult to capture all the many online corrections and typo fixes done in real time, around the clock, throughout the Star and StarMetro newsrooms across Canada.”
Meanwhile, The Globe and Mail’s public editor, Sylvia Stead, reported that it publishes corrections “for significant factual errors,” which include names and numbers but not always business names or minor details. “The numbers are down somewhat this year for paper and online corrections, by roughly 10 per cent. They were up about the same amount last year. I can’t explain these variations but the numbers year over year, unfortunately are pretty steady,” she wrote.
Stead estimated to iMediaEthics that the Globe published “about 400 to 450 corrections for the year.”
Stead noted that its report an error option on stories has prompted nearly 20,000 responses since May 2016.
The Globe and Mail’s public editor, Sylvia Stead, reported that it publishes corrections “for significant factual errors,” which include names and numbers but not always business names or minor details. “The numbers are down somewhat this year for paper and online corrections, by roughly 10 per cent. They were up about the same amount last year. I can’t explain these variations but the numbers year over year, unfortunately are pretty steady,” she wrote.
Stead estimated to iMediaEthics that the Globe published “about 400 to 450 corrections for the year.”
Stead noted that its report an error option on stories has prompted nearly 20,000 responses since May 2016.
An area for improvement at the Toronto Star, English said, is making sure all corrections are noted. “It has been an ongoing challenge for me over the past 11 years to help every single person here understand that such online ‘fixes’ require proper corrections, in line with the Star’s transparency and accountability standards. To ‘scrub’ online mistakes and pretend they were never printed is not aligned with those standards,” she wrote.
Many common types of mistakes are name misspellings, wrong identities, or wrongly reporting deaths or numbers. English highlighted some of her favorite corrections, including a photo caption correction for misidentifying a rainbow trout as a salmon and stating that a hyena at the zoo had a root canal.
Last year, the Star published 1,179 corrections.
