• “Examining Our Credibility: Perspectives of the Public and the Press,” details national research for the Journalism Credibility Project and is available on the Web at www.asne.org/kiosk/reports/99reports/1999examiningourcredibility/ or by mail at the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 11690B Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20191.
• “Examining Our Credibility: Building Reader Trust,” reports on efforts of eight newspapers to address public concerns about accuracy, fairness and sensationalism as part of the Journalism Credibility Project. The report is available from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 11690B Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20191.
• “Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists,” by Robert J. Haiman for The Freedom Forum’s Free Press/Fair Press Project. Contact: The Freedom Forum, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22209. Other articles about journalism are available on the Web at www.freedomforum.org.
• “The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect,” by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, due for publication spring 2001 by Crown Publishers, New York. For more information, contact the Committee of Concerned Journalists at www.journalism.org.
• The Organization of News Ombudsmen, an international group of ombudsmen, public editors and reader representatives, maintains a Web site that includes links to weekly columns by members as well as essays and speeches on press credibility and ombudsmanship. The site is www.newsombudsmen.org.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER'S CUSTOMER BILL OF RIGHTS

The Orange County Register is dedicated to serving its community as an independent source of news and information, with the highest standards of accuracy, credibility and integrity. We guarantee our customers satisfaction with our newspaper, its related products and our service. Our promises to you:

• We’ll deliver a newspaper that satisfies you or your money back.
• We’ll deliver the newspaper on time, in readable condition or your money back. Delivery is guaranteed no later than 5:30 a.m. weekdays and by 6:30 a.m. on Sunday.
• If you have an inquiry, we will respond to you within 24 hours.
• We’ll listen to your ideas on how to make our products and services better and will acknowledge them promptly.
• We’ll publish your advertisement correctly the first time or your money back.
• If you experience a problem with the delivery of your paper, we will redeliver a replacement newspaper within 59 minutes.

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE OMUBDMAN JOB DESCRIPTION

Duties

1. Receive complaints from readership by phone, letter or e-mail; assure reader that action in some form will be taken.
2. Investigate charges of unfairness, factual errors, poor judgment, invasion of privacy, or lack of sensitivity reflected in news stories, photographs, headlines and graphics; consult with staff about errors and obtain explanations.
3. Determine how to resolve complaints: a.) correct factual errors b.) clarify false impressions via clarification c.) address issue in weekly column d.) write or call the reader with an explanation if the paper’s actions were valid.
4. Write weekly column that includes comments on industrywide issues as well as comments or complaints by readers, including an opinion as to whether or not the newspaper erred.
5. Recommend to the editor when changes in style or practice are indicated by the frequency or intensity of complaints.
6. Advise the editor when coverage of an event or issue appears to be one-sided or unbalanced.
7. Advise the editor on matters of ethics, fairness and objectivity in journalism based on industry trends and developments as well as public opinion and attitudes.
8. Consult with corporate counsel on questions of media law bearing on issues of privacy, libel and accuracy.
9. Coordinate with other departments to resolve reader complaints unrelated to editorial and news content, such as printing quality, lateness of newspaper delivery or advertising. Monitor to ensure reader complaint is handled.

Knowledge

1. Knowledge of the history of newspaper journalism; evolution of style, standards and practices; knowledge of current industrywide trends and developments, especially the ethics of journalism and legal restraints on journalists.
2. Knowledge of and support for the editor’s and publisher’s code of ethics and standards of style, fairness, accuracy and objectivity.
3. Knowledge of community standards of taste, attitudes and sensitivities related to issues of race, ethnicity, religion, sex bias, profanity, pornography and other issues of morality.
4. Knowledge of the newspaper’s organizational structure, departmental interrelationships and roles and responsibilities of positions employed throughout.

Abilities and skills

1. Ability to place readers’ concerns above those of editors and the staff, including the ability to consistently seek accuracy and fairness even when this means identifying the newspaper’s actions as erroneous, unfair or insensitive.
2. Ability to readily gain the trust and cooperation of others, both readers and staff.
3. Ability to independently and impartially conduct investigations of the newspaper’s actions, talking to employees as necessary, disagreeing constructively and being persistent in obtaining explanations.
4. Ability to write distinctively, in one’s own style, while communicating clearly and effectively with the writer’s audience.
5. Ability to produce accurate work.
6. Ability to consistently complete assignments in a professional and timely manner, meeting all deadlines.

Other requirements

• Avoid all conflicts of interest and other bias in professional work, including the appearance of such a conflict.

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF OMBUDSMEN

By Sanders LaMont, The Sacramento Bee

1. Shut up and listen. The reason this reader called was because he or she had something to say about your newspaper and they want it to be better.
2. Take even irritating callers seriously. He or she may have a valid point obscured by an obstreperous personality.
3. Respond, somehow, to every call or letter. An acknowledgment may be all that is required, but avoid lectures or sarcasm.
4. Assure each caller that the message they bring will be delivered to a person in the newspaper management who has the authority to do something about it.
5. Deliver all the messages, quickly, to the right people at the newspaper.
6. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. Don’t give the caller the impression you will change things.
7. If the call involves a correction or retraction, get as much detail as possible and relay the information immediately to the senior editor available at that time. Don’t make promises, and don’t leave word on voice mail.
8. Make no assumptions about a caller based upon the sound of her/his voice, self-deprecating description or apparent age. Every reader counts and has something to say.
9. Make no assumptions about newsroom folks based upon your stereotypical views of reporters and editors or that voiced by the callers. Professional journalists don’t want to make mistakes, and most are not as defensive as portrayed.
10. Be polite. It costs nothing, may open the door to a wonderful conversation, and your mother and father would be proud.

The American Editor, September 1999

Chapter 2 --- Community Connections

• The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Poynter faculty offer a range of essays and practical tips on fairness, community connections and diversity. Look under “Diversity & Race” at www.poynter.org/dj/tips/index.htm.
• Maynard Institute for Journalism Education offers workshops and consulting to help media increase diversity. For information, contact the Maynard Institute, 409 13th St., Ninth Floor, Oakland, CA 94612 or visit the Web site at www.maynardije.org.
• Pew Center for Civic Journalism offers workshops on ways journalists can improve their public connections as well as examples of recent work by journalists. For more information, contact Pew Center for Civic Journalism, 1101 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 420, Washington, DC 20036 or visit the Web site at www.pewcenter.org.
• “Covering the Community,” a report by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, shows how to look at diversity in your newspaper by examining story types, play, style and language, sources, photographs and graphics. Copies are available from ASNE at 11690B Sunrise Valley Drive Reston, VA 20191-1409 or by e-mail to asne@asne.org.
• “Covering the Community: A Diversity Handbook for Media,” by Leigh Stephens Aldrich, 1999. Available through Sage Publications Inc. at www.sagepub.com or by e-mailing Pine Forge Press at sales@pfp.sagepub.com. This book provides a variety of practical tips for reporting on diverse communities.

DESIGNING A CONTENT AUDIT

These excerpts and the form on the next page are from ASNE’s “Covering the Community.” They are based on the work of Karen Brown Dunlap of The Poynter Institute.

Consider the following definitions for consistency:

• Minority: The major racial and ethnic groups are defined by the U.S. Census: African-Americans, Latinos or Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans. (The 2000 Census splits Asian Americans into two categories, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and adds a new multiracial category). Each newspaper should decide whether or not to include women, people with disabilities and gay people. People (organizations or institutions) are counted if the article clearly identifies them as minorities, women, people with disabilities or gay people or if the picture strongly suggests that a person is a minority.
• Item: A story/photo package, a stand-alone story or photo, news brief, editorial, editorial column or editorial cartoon. Determine whether to count international news (unless, perhaps, American officials are strongly involved), fillers, obituaries, feature cartoons, comics and advice columns.
• Minority items: Account for minority people, organizations or institutions. Decide whether or not to include prominent local (or state) officials who are minorities. If you do not include them, you also must exclude nonminority officials from the “total item count.” The definition of “minority item” is intentionally broad because many indications of race that are familiar to residents, such as the name of a neighborhood, are not apparent to an outside reviewer.
• Civil rights: Stories that focus on legal or social actions to promote or review rights guaranteed under civil rights laws.
• Crime: Items on crime, committing crimes, crime statistics, the court system, jails or prisons.
• Daily life: Events that mark the human experience. These include births, weddings, light features, scenes from daily activities.
• Entertainment: The arts in various forms, articles on celebrities. Be careful; these items could skew results if the newspaper frequently highlights minority entertainers.
• Politics: Federal, state and local legislative proceedings, government agencies, or U.S. government leaders in international affairs.
• Sports: Local, state and national sporting events.

Content Analysis

TRANSMITTING VALUES: A GUIDE TO FAIRER JOURNALISM

By Keith Woods, The Poynter Institute

Most journalists willingly concede that objectivity is an honorable myth, achievable only in an ideal world. If that is so, then our success at moving along the continuum from subjective reporting toward that objective ideal hinges on our ability to recognize and correct for the human biases that pull us in the wrong direction. Here are places to look for those biases:

Selection

RESOURCES The Poynter Institute faculty offer a range of essays and practical tips on fairness, community connections and diversity. Poynter publications include “The Push for Connections, Covering the Untold Stories, Poynter Report, Spring 2000.” For more information, go to Poynter’s Web site at www.poynter.org

The stories we choose can tell our public something about what we value. Where we go, whom we interview, what perspectives we represent, all convey a message to the public.

When it works: When the scope of coverage shows communities in their fullest complexity — all classes, religions, races/ethnicities, men and women, gay and straight, all political persuasions — then there is a greater chance that all groups will feel valued and will respect your organization.

When it doesn’t work: It produces reporting that largely ignores groups or disproportionately shows them in a negative or stereotypical way. Religious fundamentalists as extremists; gay men as AIDS victims; Hispanics and black people as criminals.

Language

How we refer to people or incidents, from the opening of a story to its kicker, can speak volumes to the public. Each adjective, phrase or inflection, either verbal or written, has the power to signal to a viewer, reader or listener that the reporter has a particular point of view.

When it works: Language is precise, direct, strong. It is not overly dependent upon sources and subjects. It is wary of single-word descriptors — radical, hysterical, separatist — that are used as labels by one person or group against another. It avoids hyperbole and euphemisms.

When it doesn’t work: Inference substitutes for fact. Language is loaded. Euphemisms reign. A man “admits” that he is gay. A pregnant woman “peddles” her story to the press. Richard Jewell “bounces” from job to job. “Inner-city” replaces black or Hispanic. “Conservative,” “suburban,” or “blue-collar” replace white.

Images

Studies show that images can easily overpower words in broadcast and in print, and they can deliver a message that may or may not be what the journalist intends. Images shape impressions, and their effects, positive and negative, are long-lasting.

When they work: They portray a diversity of people and offer a range of perspectives. They take the public where they might not ordinarily go. They’re the work of informed photojournalists whose continuing education provides both sensitivity and confidence. They produce a body of work that is balanced and fair.

When they don’t work: They help form or reinforce stereotypes by portraying people disproportionately in a negative or stereotypical light. They hurt people unnecessarily. They provide the public with a false sense of the world in which they live.

Play

The most abiding and most immediate values transmitted from journalists to their public arrive via the “play” a story gets. Top of the A-block. Banner headline. Large letters. Urgent pitch. Journalists tell people who and what is most important. Which stories must be told now. Which can be relegated to the news briefs and the back pages.

When it works: All people are valued equally. Breast cancer stories get the same play as prostate cancer stories. Success and tragedy stories about people of color receive the same prominent play as those about white people.

When it doesn’t work: Journalists perpetuate a false hierarchy where men’s issues are more important than those of women. Where white lives are worth more than others. Where the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians is considered more newsworthy than that of heterosexuals.

COVERING RACE AND ETHNICITY IN YOUR COMMUNITY

By Stephen Magagnini, The Sacramento Bee

1) Remember, you’re in it for the long haul. Be prepared to lay weeks and months of groundwork with community leaders, businesspeople and college students from a particular ethnic group — just talking about issues and trends that are important to them. Natural stories will present themselves.

2) Treat people the way you want to be treated: as individuals and with respect. Ask people how they want to be described; I met an anthropologist from an Indian nation in Southern California who said she was neither Native nor American. Some Mexican Americans call themselves Chicanos, while their parents can’t stand the word. 3) Never generalize about a racial or ethnic group, either in print or in an interview. When I’ve been the only white person among a group of Africans, Pakistanis, American Indians, Chinese or Hmong, I’ve always been treated well, because I’ve been genuinely interested in them — and willing to learn from them.

4) We tell our story through the voices of people belonging to a particular group, so always make sure all major points of view are represented, and always check out our sources to ensure they’re credible and respected.

5) Let your sources play editor. I often ask them, “If you were writing a story about the (fill in the blank) in Sacramento, what would your lead be?” Or, “Who agrees with you? Who doesn’t like you?” Or, “What really bothers you about the way members of your ethnic group have been portrayed in the media? What stories would you like to see?”

6) Be aware of cultural differences. I had a lot of trouble talking to most American Indians on the phone. The Indian way is to meet you face to face. When I met them, I’d say, “I got your name from so-and-so,” and that’s what opens doors. If you know about an Indian event, that means you’re welcome.

7) Don’t forget that there are often many different points of view within the same ethnic group. The African-American community (and I’m not crazy about the word “community”) doesn’t speak with one voice. You can find African-Americans or Latinos or Chinese Americans on every side of an issue. Make sure the range of voices are represented. I talked with five groups for a story I did on the 50th anniversary of East Indian independence: Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs for and against India.

8) Immerse yourself in the culture. Go to festivals, marriages and workshops. Learn a few words; they’ll go a long way. Take part in customs. I went to an Indian sweat lodge in San Diego County. It was the most intense experience of my life, and it was a threshold-crossing, proof that I was willing to sacrifice to gain truth and wisdom. Many doors opened after that.

9) Go to events to make contacts, but don’t let events drive your coverage. In the past, many if not most ethnic stories were event-driven (i.e. holidays, festivals, speeches by prominent people) and rarely received front-page play. We’ve placed more emphasis on meatier, big-picture stories that explain trends and put ethnic groups in context. Examples include a two-story package on Hmong and Iu Mien shamans from Laos and how their traditional practices, including animal sacrifice, have created conflicts with neighbors and Western doctors — and how people are working through those conflicts.

We also did a two-story package on how Filipino Americans — along with Chinese Americans the largest Asian ethnic group in California — are finally coming out of the shadows, pressing for cultural and language classes at universities.

10) Be proactive, not reactive. Tell stories that provide background and context first. We’ve tried to avoid two traps some media organizations, including The Bee, have fallen into:

The “minority of the week” story (writing about minorities for the sake of writing about minorities, i.e., “Here are our Latinos”).

The “minority bad news story of the week” (writing about people of color whenever there’s a problem, i.e., violence in minority neighborhoods). Those certainly are stories, but they go down a lot easier when you’ve provided context and written stories emphasizing other aspects of minority life.

One big-picture story is worth 20 briefs. It lays a positive foundation, so when it comes time to write a critical story (i.e., the high welfare rate among Hmong and Iu Mien), you’ve got sources, they trust you, and they realize you’ve been fair to them.

11) Remember, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Never do a critical story unless you provide (a) reasons for the problem and (b) possible solutions.

12) Contextual stories and historical stories do a lot of good. My goal is twofold: to educate readers about different groups, why they’re here and the genesis of their problems, and to write for ethnic groups so they have a living history of their culture. Hmong and Iu Mien shamans may not even exist 30 years from now. Historical and analytical pieces with a news hook have also gotten A1 play. For example, pieces on slain civil rights heroes Medgar Evers and Viola Liuzzo were triggered by news events.

13) Good yarns get good play. Every story has to stand on its own merits. Our goal is to tell an interesting or compelling story that happens to involve a person or persons of a particular ethnic or racial group. If it involves people from several groups, so much the better. One of the most heart-rending stories I’ve come across was about Sugihara, the Japanese consul to Lithuania during World War II who risked his life and sacrificed his career to write exit visas for thousands of Jews who otherwise would have been killed by the Nazis.

14) Widen your vision. From the beginning, we expanded the beat to include all ethnic and racial groups and how they relate to each other, not just traditional “minorities,” although we do emphasize people from groups that don’t generally have much of a voice in mainstream media. In Sacramento they include Hmong and Iu Mien tribespeople from the mountains of Laos, other Southeast Asian refugees, Filipino-Americans, American Indians and a mind-boggling number of Evangelical refugees from the former Soviet Union.

15) Stories beget stories. The project on Hmong and Iu Mien shamans triggered stories on the legendary Hmong Gen. Vang Pao, who led the CIA’s secret war in Laos, and on a Hmong teen who fled Fresno rather than be forced into chemotherapy. The range of Hmong stories earned the trust of several key American Indian leaders, who decided it was time to finally tell the California Indian story. A contextual piece on Filipinos coming out of the shadows not only allowed us to tell modern Filipino-American history, but led to a story on the late, great labor leader Larry Itliong, who had been lost to history.

TAPPING CIVIL LIFE IN TAMPA

By Steve Kaylor, The Tampa Tribune

RESOURCES Pew Center for Civic Journalism collects examples of journalism that reflect better community connections on its Web site, www.pewcenter.org, under “Pew Projects” and “Spotlights.’ Two recent efforts, based on research by The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, offer steps for developing a broader range of community sources: “Tapping Civic Life, How to Report First, and Best, What’s Happening in Your Community,” a workbook. Look under “Publications” on the Pew site. “A Journalist’s Toolbox, Building Better Journalism,” a set of four videos. Look under “Spotlights” on the Pew site. The mailing address is Pew Center for Civic Journalism, 1101 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 420, Washington, DC 20036.

We write a great many stories using the same sources over and over again. And we quote city officials, bureaucrats and key civic activists as the main — and sometimes only — sources in too many stories.

We have too few stories that reflect the true concerns of a neighborhood or give a voice to a wide segment of residents within our towns. Often the first we hear about an important community issue is when it reaches city hall, instead of learning of it from the people most closely affected when it first arises. Readers tell us, and viewers tell television stations, that we’re too often missing the point.

As a result, our coverage sometimes falls flat.

Instead of flat, we need to be round — inclusive, plugged in and grass roots. We need to ask better questions and learn to listen. To not settle for a pithy quote but to concentrate on what’s being said.

To try to correct some of our shortcomings, The Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV and Tampa Bay Online jointly applied for training (from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism) to better understand and cover our communities.

The San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., and The Denver Post joined us in this effort to learn new approaches in reaching a greater diversity of sources.

In applying for the training, we knew we wanted to use the multimedia strengths of television, online and paper to reach more people and in a greater variety of forms.

We decided to narrow our focus to a single community, the rapidly changing area of Tampa Heights. It’s a community rich in history. Racially diverse, the community faces redevelopment and gentrification because of its prime location near downtown and Hillsborough River.

We’re trying to learn Harwood’s methods for finding sources and places where people meet and discuss the issues of their towns. Think of it as a pyramid — with city officials at the top. The deeper we probe into a community — past the bureaucrats and then through the civic activists — the broader the pyramid gets.

At its base is the greatest number of people, readers and sources — and our best and most grounded stories.

And we’re learning why more open-ended questions — rather than pointed questions to get narrow responses — will help us learn more about what’s important to the people we should be writing about.

It’s not that we don’t do some of these things now. It’s that we don’t all do them often enough.

If you have questions about these concepts, ask any of us. We’ll be happy to share what we’re learning, as we’re learning it.

“Why Tap Your Community?” The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, March 31, 1999, quoted in Tapping Civic Life, Pew Center for Civic Journalism, 2000, p. 2.

SPOKANE: THE VIEW FROM THE COMMUNITY

By Doug Floyd, The Spokesman-Review

A Wichita newspaper editor named Buzz Merritt once likened public life to a marsh — a wonder of nature where on the water’s surface all seems calm but inches beneath your feet, microscopic life thrives unnoticed.

On Thursday evening, a roomful of residents from Spokane’s East Central Neighborhood gave some of The Spokesman-Review’s editors and writers a glimpse of what Merritt meant.

The superficial view of East Central, they said, is that it’s rundown, poor and crime-ridden. That’s the stereotype embraced by much of the broader Spokane community, but the truth, as usual, is more complex.

Crime? Sure, there’s crime. One person told of seeing children playing with what he thought were squirt guns only to find they were discarded syringes the kids had found in a park.

Still, the actual rate of crime is higher in many other neighborhoods, residents pointed out.

And Grant School, just a few blocks from the East Central Community Center where our gathering took place, is spinning heads with its rising math scores and enviable computer resources.

Older houses, neglected but rich in character, are affordable and restorable. The South Perry business district is revitalizing itself. People are involved in their schools, their community center, their kids, each other.

A month earlier, across town in Spokane’s West Central Community Center, we heard many of the same views. People are doing good works, looking out for their families and each other. There’s more to West Central, folks at that forum said, than poverty.

But one worry they did express, repeatedly, was the damage a neighborhood suffers when large numbers of house owners don’t live in them — or even in town. Absentee landlords, eager for their property investment to pay off, often rent to anyone with the cash, no matter how he or she got it. If it comes from drug dealing, the quality of life suffers profoundly — not for the landlords, of course, but for the neighbors.

“Neighborhood,” you begin to realize, isn’t just a cluster of buildings inside an arbitrary boundary. Like “brotherhood” or “priesthood,” it’s a set of relationships and expectations and duties.

Neighborhoods aren’t built by absentee landlords, transient criminals or terrified and reclusive residents. Rather, they’re the work of people who choose to live in West Central, East Central and other Spokane neighborhoods, knowing they can help build something positive.

For more, look on today’s Perspective Page where some of the people who attended the West Central forum have contributed short columns. Similar columns from East Central residents will appear in coming weeks.

“East Central — More Here Than Meets Eye,” The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash., Nov. 5. 2000.

Chapter 3 --- Accuracy

The New York Times guidelines on corrections Because its voice is loud and far-reaching, The Times recognizes an ethical responsibility to correct all its factual errors, large and small (even misspellings of names), promptly and in a prominent reserved space in the paper. A correction serves all readers, not just those who were injured or who complained, so it must be self-explanatory, tersely recalling the context and the background while repairing the error.

A complaint from any source should be relayed to a responsible editor and investigated quickly. If a correction is warranted, it should follow immediately. In the rare case of a delay longer than a month, the correction should include an explanation (saying, for example, how recently the error was discovered, or why the checking took so long). If the justification is lame or lacking, the correction should acknowledge a reporting or editing lapse.

The correction should appear, of course, in any regional editions that carried the error. If the error, or the entire faulty article, appeared in only some copies, the correction should say so. When the correction refers to an error in a preprinted section of the current day’s paper, it gives a page number.

Seldom should a correction try to place blame or deflect it outside The Times; the effort might appear defensive or insincere. But when an error has occurred under the byline or credit of a blameless staff member or news agency, the correction may cite an editing error or a transmission error. And if The Times has been misinformed by an institution or a reference work that should have been authoritative, the error may be attributed: “included an erroneous profit figure from the company’s annual report.” Note, though, that the attribution is light-handed and given in passing (not, for example, “Because of erroneous information from the Karitsa Company” ).

For clarity, the first sentence of a correction should characterize the error without repeating the faulty information (misstated the 1998 profit of the Karitsa Company’s heavy equipment group). At the end, after supplying the facts, the correction may usefully remind readers of the specific error (It was $480 million, not $480 billion).

From The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly, Times Books, 1999

The New York TImes Allocates ample space to run detailed corrections on page A2.

THE NEW YORK TIMES GUIDELINES ON EDITORS' NOTES

Editors’ notes acknowledge (and rectify when possible) lapses of fairness, balance or perspective faults more subtle or less concrete than factual errors, although often as grave and sometimes graver. Examples might include The Times’ failure to seek a comment from someone denounced or accused in its columns or the omission of one party’s argument in a controversy, resulting from haste in fitting the article into too small a space. Or the editors may have discovered that a free-lancer, assigned to review a book, failed to divulge a conflict of interest.

The possessive is always plural: editors’ note. A note is published only after consultation with senior masthead editors to ensure that it is as fair to the staff as to readers and to the people mentioned. The purpose is to restore perspective while assuring readers that The Times’ slip did not typify its standards or policy.

The note begins by recalling the date, placement and content of the faulty article in a sentence or two. In another few phrases, it then summarizes the passage that created the problem. It goes on to state the fault, preferably in a terse way that sheds light on The Times’ journalistic practice without preaching: In fairness, the company should have been asked for its response to the accusation. If possible, the note then supplies what was lacking earlier: Yesterday the company denied that its prices were out of line, citing the unusual cost of its raw materials.

Another example: Ms. Agnello’s own book was reviewed unfavorably last year by the author she was reviewing. The Times has a policy against assigning a review in those circumstances. Ms. Agnello says she was unaware of it.

From The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, copyright © 1999 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.

STAR TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS) QUESTIONAIRE

1. Were there any inaccuracies? Yes ___ No ___ If so, please explain

Headline

Article

Picture caption

Otherwise

2. Were there important omissions? Yes ___ No ___ Please explain

3. Was there a lack of balance? If so, please explain

Additional comments

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHICAGO TRIBUNE CORRECTION FORM

FOR PUBLICATION

Text of proposed correction for page 3:

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Describe error and show a corrected version.

How did error occur?

How did the error come to our attention?

Did deadlines affect this error?

How could this error have been avoided?

Comments:

Name of staff member filing this form:

CHICAGO TRIBUNE ACCURACY REPORT

Periodic updates keep staff informed of progress in improving factual accuracy and bring focus to newsroom efforts. Here is part of a report for 1998 by Margaret Holt, customer service editor at the Chicago Tribune:

SUMMARY: We made significant progress in all areas that we track, especially in reducing the number of mistakes in news gathering. We are awaiting the fourth-quarter accuracy report by our proofreading service; it likely will show continued progress, for the sixth straight year.

The key areas for 1998 were:

• Reduce display text errors — headlines, captions, graphics. We did that, showing an improvement of 17.28 percent over 1997. The actual number was 134, down from 162 in 1997. We highlighted this area because of impact; these errors are especially offensive to readers, something that we know both informally and through research.
• Increase the percentage of internal disclosure of errors. It was 31.95 percent in 1997. That improved to 36.59 percent. When we do make mistakes, we want to get them corrected quickly, and our staff members know how important it is to do that. We consider our openness about correcting mistakes to be a valuable part of our credibility with readers.
• Reduce the number of news gathering errors. This is identified through error forms for corrections. We had 356 errors, compared with 387 in 1997. About half of all errors occur in the first step of the news process, which is why we expanded editing and writing classes last year. About 250 writers and columnists participated in the classes on writing and media law.
• In addition, we have monitored free-lance errors for three years. Typically, 18 percent to 23 percent of our errors involve free-lance work. In 1998, the percentage improved, to 13.03 percent, thanks to extra attention from assigning editors.

Here are the error form categories for 1998:

News gathering 356, or 50.42% of total

Editing 117, or 16.57%

Production/display 67, or 9.49%

Syndicate or outside supplier, such as wires 35, or 4.96%

Simple error (brainlock) 51, or 7.22%

Unavoidable 80, or 11.33%

THE NEWS-TIMES- (DANBURY, CONN.) PAGE PROOFING CHECKLIST

Display type/formatting

• Headlines are spelled correctly and match story. Lines do not end in preposition or modifier.
• Cutlines have been proofed and match story.
• Page folio is correct.
• Pullout quotes have been proofed and match story.
• Reefer lines are correct.
• Jump lines have been checked.
• Bylines are correct.
• Local stories in A section have town labels.
• Staff-written stories have tagline with e-mail and phone number.

Photos and graphics

• Photo content matches cutline
• Photo on page is cropped correctly
• Photo has .5-point frame.
• Credit line is correct.
• Graphics content has been proofed.

Layout

• Copy is aligned correctly.
• Stories end correctly — not in the middle of a sentence.
• Spacing is consistent.
• No bumping heads.
• Lede story is apparent.

Spell check

• Page has been spell-checked.

CHICAGO TRIBUME COPY EDITING GUIDELINES

ACCURACY GUIDELINES AT THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

A newspaper’s reputation rests on its accuracy. That means everyone who provides content for the paper not only by reporting and writing stories, but transferring statistics to tables, creating graphics, editing copy, writing headlines, collecting caption material or researching facts must take responsibility for the accuracy of that work. If you gathered the item or keyboarded the item or edited or manipulated the item in a layout, you are also responsible for maintaining its accuracy throughout the process.

Once newspaper copy editing systems were full-service guardians of accuracy. They acted as fact-checker, arbiter of style and usage, smoother of wrinkled prose, fine tuner of nuance and champion of good writing. Technological change splintered these editing duties into specialized functions (source editors and current desks) and removed some safety nets altogether.

Because pagination will be even more demanding, some basic accuracy checks and copy editing skills become requirements for everyone who works in the editorial department.

Desk editors begin by knowing the players. Who’s a free-lancer? Who among the staff has special problems or circumstances, e.g. bad speller, bad fact checker, behind on grammar, new to the subject or beat. Experience teaches them writers’ strengths and weaknesses. When it’s your own work, assess your own skills and work on your own weaknesses. If you’re a bad speller, for example, look up everything you’re unsure of if no good spell check is available — and do not rely entirely on the spell check, because it misses many errors of proper names and titles, homonyms, repetition, omission and grammar.

Read the stylebook and memorize the parts you use regularly. It is the first reference when you have a question of style or usage. Second is a good dictionary of recent vintage that will answer all the questions not addressed in the stylebook. You can save time and energy if you make your own cheat sheet of frequently misspelled words or grammatical rules you always have to look up.

Learn the department, the pace of work. We all like to take our time, but if we miss deadlines, it impacts on someone else. And on a desk, certain amounts of work must be done in a given shift, so a rim person or assistant editor must pace him or herself to finish the work allotted — 8 or 10 or whatever stories. That’s why there is sometimes too little time for a desk editor to check someone else’s facts or arithmetic.

Some time-tested techniques editors use are equally valuable tools for writers and other creators of content to check their own work for accuracy. Give every piece of information you create, manipulate, or otherwise change for the newspaper at least three reads whenever possible.

A. FIRST READ: Content. Listen to your instincts. If it isn’t clear or doesn’t sound right to you, it won’t sound better to someone else. Read for transitions, structure, parts you stumble over and have to go back and reread, parts that make you doze off, parts you don’t understand. Does the piece sound written for the reader or the sources (a problem with specialized material sometimes). Is it full of multisyllabic words and multiword verbs or clear and concise? Is it full of jargon or an alphabet soup of acronyms, or is it written in standard English with unusual terms spelled out or defined?

In an ideal world, the source editor would back up the creator by the same process. The source editor’s huge assignment ensures a piece has structural and logical order, that it meets an approximate designated length, in consultation with the writer. Source editors point out omissions of fact and reporting and problems of content that require major revision or fact checking by the writer.

Fact checking: If you don’t know if something is true, find out. Consult a reliable source for the answer — stylebook, dictionary, encyclopedia, grammar book, reference work in area of coverage. Use, but be aware of the dangers of, the archive clips in the Save system, Internet sites and the person at the next desk. All can and will be wrong at some time, even if they bail you out most of the other times. Proceed with caution.

Arithmetic in a story: Check it three times. Use a calculator if it’s complicated. Dial phone numbers whenever possible to check accuracy, and double-check addresses in a street guide.

B. SECOND READ. Style. Does the item or story conform to rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation and usage as set out in the Tribune stylebook, dictionary and standard usage manuals? Do subjects and verbs agree, are addresses and dates in Tribune style? Are people’s names spelled consistently throughout? Do all pronouns have clear antecedents, etc.

C. THIRD READ. Proofing. Spell out every word, look for doubled words, missing words, etc. Sadly, often these days there is no time for this one on the various desks, making it imperative that writers and content providers do the same process to their own work. Use spell check to back yourself up.

When should an editor call the writer? If there is time, whenever a fact is missing or a meaning unclear, when new leads need construction or a story is heavily in need of restructuring or a major trim of more than 5 percent or 10 percent.

If there is no time to call, ask someone on the desk who has knowledge of the subject, or write around it whenever possible.

It’s still a good idea for writers et al. to CQ in notes odd names, facts, spellings or items you had to look up yourself. Saves angst and double effort by the next person down the line. Also, if you can’t confirm a fact when you’re writing something, don’t put it in the story. If you can’t confirm it, odds are the next person down the line can’t either. Certainly if there is any doubt about a vital fact, describe the problem in a note. Never assume that anyone down the line will just catch something, fix something or check something unless you can call attention to it. And then it may be edited out if the desk runs out of time. Try not to leave unchecked facts in stories unless they are breaking stories, and even then be aware of the danger and clearly mark the fact in question.

Trimming. In general, don’t trim from the end. Most stories and graphic packages have (or should have) beginnings, middles and ends. And don’t trim all the quotes. Find a section, graf or sentence, depending on the length that must come out, that can disappear without hurting the main thought of the piece. Look for repetition of ideas or repetition between paraphrase and a real quote, anecdotes or quotes that may be interesting but aren’t germane to the subject. Then, before you delete, read the transition to see if it makes sense. If it needs more than minor work to fix, you may not be trimming the right thing.

A good editor tries to keep the mood and the style of the writer intact. It’s not a good idea to rewrite someone else extensively (except in deadline or group efforts), and it’s not a good idea to shorten stories by taking ALL the color and writerly touches out. Writing and editing are art forms at heart.

Conversely, writers should not confuse the reader with overly complex descriptions and flourishes. As you work with writers, including yourselves, you will learn to act as a reader. Ask yourself how a reader would react, not just could a reader struggle through it, but what could be done to make the process easier and more interesting. Just because we publish something doesn’t mean anyone will actually wade through it.

Be careful not to trim first references when you shorten a story. Use your Find key to make sure first references remain if you have any doubt. Remember that columnists and critics are given much more freedom than other writers. One does not rewrite or significantly change their copy without a nod from a slot or those particular writers.

It’s easy to trim writers who put everything they know into a story. It’s hard to trim writers who have edited their research and chosen only the best quotes, examples, etc. and whose story is built on the strong backbone of a single theme.

Keeping up with the job: Read the Tribune thoroughly every day. That doesn’t mean read every word, but read the section you work for more or less word for word and read at least the section fronts of the other sections, both news and features. Before starting a project, check the Save system for previous stories on the subject and consult the paper clips when appropriate for stories with longer histories. It will help you keep from repeating what has been done before and give you some background and context.

Read other papers whenever possible and read at least one specialized publication (preferably a primary source) in the field in which you work. In case that’s a new term for you, a primary source is one aimed at the practitioners or experts in the field. A secondary source is a newspaper or other periodical that covers a subject for a lay audience.

Specialists and the editors they work with obviously read more than one primary source. And editors or writers who move into a new area should do as much as they can to develop expertise in that subject.

Jim Haglund, Mary Knoblauch and Chris Rauser, Chicago Tribune.

THE KANSAS CITY STAR VERIFICATION GUIDELINES

Introduction

This guide to verification is not the last word, but it is a starting point. You are expected to follow such procedures daily. You also are expected to take any steps beyond what is presented here to ensure that every fact you write is accurate.

Verification is far more than checking a person’s name in the telephone directory. It should begin with your first interview and not end until the last editor has asked the last question about your copy.

It involves playing devil’s advocate with your own information and copy. It means looking through your notes before you write and through your copy, both while and after you write, for any fact, name, number or other detail that can be checked a second or a third way. Then do those additional checks.

Never assume anything — corny as it sounds, that can make an ASS out of U and ME.

The Star maintains many verification tools — clips, maps and directories downtown and in the bureaus. If you know of a tool that is not available, ask your assistant city editor if it is possible to obtain it.

Reliable sources also are good places to go for verification — but ask them to look up names and numbers rather than relying on memory. Somebody else’s faulty memory is a lousy reason to have to write a correction.

Names

Check with the individual if living, the family, the medical examiner or the funeral home, if just deceased. Then check, in order, the telephone directory or directory assistance, the Polk directory, the Cole’s directory.

Specialized directories such as state manuals, directories of government or institutional employees, bar association directories, medical directories etc. also can be helpful. If you can’t find the name, alarm bells should sound. Try directory assistance — if they say that person lives at the address you have, with the name spelled the way you have it, fine — even if the phone number is unlisted.

If not, go back to the directories to search for variations on the spelling you have. If you find one that appears to be your subject, go back to your original source and explain the situation, asking that they double-check the way you copied the information. If you copied it correctly, ask whether they can double-check their information. In the case of an accident victim, for example, see whether the hospital public relations staff can check the victim’s driver’s license.

Among the first questions in an interview should be the person’s name, age and other pertinent personal information, such as job title or profession. That information should be rechecked at the close of the conversation. When the reporter gets back to the newsroom, he or she should verify such information with yet another source to make sure it was heard correctly and the subject was not lying.

When you get names from a second source and you can reach the subjects, have them spell their name to you rather than you spelling it to them. If you spell it to them, they may say “yes,” but they may not have been listening.

Be particularly careful with names provided over the telephone. When you are taking a name by phone, spell it back to the source in this manner. B, as in baker; O, as in orange; B as in baker.

Be particularly wary of police and fire reports. Police can be bad spellers and can be even worse at getting the precise name of a town correctly.

In one case, the name of a murder victim was spelled at least three different ways in print. We finally had to track down the death certificate to be sure. If it takes checking a birth or death certificate to be accurate, we should do it.

Before writing about a business or an individual, always check clips, but treat clips as a source of last resort for spelling of names. If you are doing a suburban story, be certain to check that bureau’s clip files.

For prominent individuals, check The Star and The Associated Press stylebooks.

Ages

Check the individual if living or authorities if deceased. Always get a date of birth as well as an age.

When getting the information from police, use the birth date (DOB in jargon) to calculate the age yourself, while talking to the officer. If the figure you get doesn’t match the figure given by the police, double-check your math, and then ask the officer to double-check the age for you.

A DOB also is what police call an identifier, and that can be vital if you have to track an individual through another law enforcement agency’s computer.

If all else fails, seek a birth or death certificate

Addresses

Check with the individual or business, if still in existence. Check, in order, the telephone directory, the Polk directory, the Cole’s directory.

Our style requires full identification of streets — is it Benton Boulevard or South Benton Street? Gillham Road or Gillham Plaza?

Use maps — especially to make certain an intersection involves streets that intersect or that an address makes sense in a city.

On traffic accidents, police officers can cause you problems by placing an accident in the intersection of two streets that don’t intersect. Even more common is having a vehicle northbound on a street that runs only east and west. Be certain to check a reliable map. Also watch for streets that intersect more than once.

Watch out for an address that could be in more than one city. Check the telephone book for a listing for the person or business, and then use the exchange map.

Also, watch out for street addresses that are a physical impossibility. Check a reliable map or the street guides in Polk or Cole’s for city boundaries. Make certain that the address, phone exchange and city all match the boundaries for the city given.

Finally, watch out for problems with numbering systems that cross city and state lines.

Telephone numbers

After you’ve checked and double-checked the directories, call the number as written on your screen to be certain it is correct.

Nothing annoys readers more than trying to call a telephone number listed in the newspaper and finding it wrong. The absolute rule on phone numbers is that you must call the number before putting it in the newspaper.

Figures

Apply common sense tests.

Is the figure reasonable? A $20 million teacher salary budget in a district with 700 pupils should set alarm bells ringing.

Use simple arithmetic calculations to test the figure in question. If you have a number that should be the total of several other numbers in a story, do the addition (or subtraction or whatever) yourself.

Don’t take someone else’s word for a figure that can be checked directly with the original source.

For example, if a state agency provides secondhand figures that originated with a federal agency, go back to the federal agency to double-check. The state agency may have the number wrong or, even more likely, may have misinterpreted what the number is supposed to represent.

Titles and ownership

Check the individual or business. Specialized directories also may help.

Polk or the telephone directories may be a starting point, but they are months out of date the day they are published.

Both The AP and The Star stylebooks include business names and how we use them.

The Polk directory is a good first-line check on a person’s title at a business, but never rely on it as a sole source — if nothing else, it usually is at least a year out of date the day it is issued.

If you are checking a business, check the name in both the white and the yellow pages of the telephone directory. If you are dealing extensively with a corporate organization, call the appropriate secretary of state’s office to check.

Other public records, such as occupational licenses, utility bills, etc., also can help.

In most cases a business won’t mind a bit if you call back to be absolutely certain about the name.

Be especially careful about the term “owner.”

If a business is a sole proprietorship, fine. If it is a corporation, the title may be president or chairman of the board rather than owner. If it is a partnership, the individual may be a partner in the firm or perhaps the managing partner. Don’t guess; find out for sure.

Another problem involves ownership of structures.

Say a fire dispatcher tells you that a blaze was “in the John Doe residence,” and the phone book shows that John Doe does indeed live there. Fine. The house can be referred to as the John Doe residence. But don’t assume John Doe owns it. The Does may well rent. Don’t say they own unless you’ve established that fact firmly with the Does, an official who knows or real estate records. The same applies to businesses — even the largest business firm may only rent its space from another firm. Thus, the name on the building may not be the name of the building owner.

Many titles, especially in government, are awkward in print.

Simplify — but only after checking the individual or a reliable source at the business or agency to make certain the simplification is accurate. Do not capitalize simplified titles.

Be particularly careful with the names of insurance companies.

In many cases, two or more different companies have similar names. There are four listed in the Kansas City directory under variations of Aetna, for example.

Criminal charges

Treat police and prosecutors only as a starting point. Whenever possible, review the case file. If impossible, make certain your source is relying on those documents — not memory.

Whenever possible, get the precise statutory citation when a criminal charge or civil lawsuit is filed, and then look up the statute. Make sure the description of the charges you’ve provided agrees with the statute. If not, go back to your source for an explanation.

If writing about a past conviction, check the records of the next possible court of appeals to see whether the case is on appeal — or whether the earlier verdict has been reversed. If possible, talk to the attorney of record for the individual.

News releases

A news release is never the last word on anything. Mistakes creep in all the time. Even if the person releasing the information catches an error, the correction may not come in time. As a general rule, even if the news release seems to have everything you need, make a phone check with the source to make certain all the information is still accurate. Always verify names and titles in news releases. There are many horror stories about individuals who are given an award but whose job or title has changed between the time the nomination for the award was made and the time it was given.

If any “fact” looks fishy, check it out.

Your Own Files

Keep the following on hand whenever you can: rosters of the employees of each government or public agency you cover; annual reports for the major corporations you cover; the budgets of the public agencies you cover; up-to-date maps of the areas you cover; and anything else you can think of that will help make certain your copy is accurate.

Question everything

Don’t accept references people make in quotes to prior events or other facts and figures. For instance if the mayor makes a statement about Harry S. Truman running for the Senate in 1933, don’t use such a reference unless you have verified that Truman did indeed run for the Senate in 1933.

Chapter 4 --- Ethics

• The American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Web site offers links to numerous newspaper ethics guidelines. Go to to www.asne.org/ideas/codes/codes.htm.
• “The Journalism Values Handbook,” produced by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and The Harwood Group explores core journalism values for newspapers. It is available from ASNE at www.asne.org/works/jvi/jviconte.htm.
• The Poynter Institute for Media Studies offers a variety of articles and tips for improving ethical decision-making in the newsroom under “Ethical Guidelines” at www.poynter.org/dj/tips/index.htm.
• “News Values, Ideas for an Information Age,” by Jack Fuller, explores the importance of core journalism values in the new media age.
• “Thinking Clearly: Case Studies in Journalistic Decision-Making,” by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, offers an online curriculum at www.journalism.org, then click on “publications and research.”
• The Associated Press Managing Editors Code of Ethics is available at apme.com/about/code_ethics.shtml.

SENSITIVE STORY PROTOCOL AT THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

Guidelines for handling sensitive stories and pictures

As journalists, we can be thankful to work at a paper where editors have the latitude to publish stories and photographs largely as we see fit.

With this freedom comes a responsibility to remember that what we do matters a great deal to readers, advertisers and our co-workers. I think it particularly important for us to anticipate and discuss the consequences and criticisms we are likely to encounter when we publish sensitive stories and photographs.

Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our procedures for handling such material.

Begin with basic issues of news values and good journalism

Any story published in The Spokesman-Review first needs to be judged on the basis of its news value. Do our readers care about this issue? Does what we are about to print impact their lives? Can we reasonably make the case the issue has value as news? This is the first test of anything we publish.

Then, any story or photograph we publish must meet our newsroom’s basic journalistic standards. These standards, outlined in our stylebook, touch on such fundamental issues as fairness, accuracy, objectivity, good taste and ethics.

Editors’ role in handling sensitive stories and photographs

As an editor reviews a story or photograph he or she thinks is sensitive, we need to follow procedures that allow for careful review.

Why? Very simply, we want to reduce the chance that we have missed something in the reporting of the story or overlooked some consequence of publishing it that will come back and haunt us later.

What is a sensitive story or photograph?

Editors need to use additional review procedures when a story or photograph is deemed particularly sensitive. What is a sensitive story or photograph?

One definition would include any story or image that:

• Has clear potential for libel or invasion-of-privacy litigation
• Will outrage a significant minority of readers or advertisers
• Could be viewed by a majority of our community as an exception to the newspaper’s understood standards of taste or appropriateness
• Likely will cause significant hardship to the subject
• Mentions the Cowles family or its interests.

What senior newsroom editors need to do in the newsroom

1. Anticipate what the critics will say. The best defense on the publication of sensitive material is to anticipate what critics will say about the story or photograph and address as best we can those criticisms.

Before publication of a sensitive story or photograph, senior newsroom managers need to try to understand the underlying issues and emotions associated with the sensitive story or photograph. This gut check within the community can help us early in framing and presenting a story to the outside and avoid being broad-sided by a reaction we didn’t anticipate.

2. Remember the “no surprises” rule of good management. As always, it’s best to alert our advertising department, publisher, circulation or other interested parties within our company about sensitive stories or photographs. Senior newsroom managers have an obligation to try to reduce internal anxiety and raise the level of understanding about why we publish what we do.

3. Review sensitive stories thoroughly prior to publication. The contents of sensitive stories and photographs need to be reviewed carefully before publication by a senior editor. Before we go with something we know will set off the alarms, let’s be confident we’re doing the right thing.

The responsibilities of department heads and line editors

1. Apply a high standard of editing. Content and copy editors simply must look harder at sensitive material.

2. Get a second read. All sensitive stories and photographs need a second look, a second opinion before publication. Find the editor or the managing editor and make him read the story. That way we can discuss the content, analyze it, be sure we are covering the bases that need to be covered.

3. Make sure the reporter is focused on the right story. Inspired professional reporting helps us do sensitive stories right. Contacting the right sources, maintaining a clear focus on key issues, sensitivity to nuance, all make a big difference in terms of how readers respond to sensitive material. Reporters need to be in regular contact with editors about their stories and keep discussing the relevance and focus of them.

These guidelines can help us perform our valuable, necessary role as watchdogs for our readers and region.