FACT CHECKERS & 
COPY EDITORS
UNC-CH JOMC: THE PARK LIBRARY
July 21, 2004, Freedom Forum Center, Carroll Hall
Smart, Safe and Efficient Fact Checking *
Presentation by: Barbara P. Semonche, Park Library Director

AGENDA
    Welcome, Announcements, Introductory Remarks
    Handouts, Books, and Reserved Materials [Selected Bibliography]
    Example of a newspaper Corrections Policy and Procedures
    Quotes:  

Knowledge Sources:

The Fact Checking Process: from ready reference to in-depth research
          Tools, techniques, talent, and "X-factors"

The Copy Editor's Personal Ready Reference Resource Tool Kit:

• Current reference books (print format) [List includes almanacs, atlases, dictionaries, directories, style manuals, local histories, statistical abstracts, math textbook, thesaurus. See also this link for a classified listing of valuable news reference and research sources ] 

• Trusted colleagues

• Personal Rolodex

• Vetted web sites and intranets 

• Powerful search engines [Google, Yahoo!, Teoma, MSN Search, HotBot, WiseNut, Gigablast]

Semonche's Sources and Strategies for Reference and Research:
         [Fact finding vs. research: copy editors should be acquainted with the range of strategies required at these two extremes of research. Recognize also that other news professionals (librarians, reporters, editors, photographers, graphic artists) have specialized skills to contribute to accuracy and quality of newspapers.] 

The Future: Accu-meters? Stat-proofers? Fact-verifiers? Plagia-alerts?
          Plagiarism detection tools are used at a few newspapers: [Note: not foolproof! June/July 2004 issue of American Journalism Review published a long article about plagiarism and fact checking in news organizations. ]

Error Terrrors: Cyber hoaxes, Net traps, Urban Myths, Lies:

Invisible Web? [Note: there is variance in what search engines will search/retrieve.]

• Non-HTML files (PDF files, etc.)

• Webbed databases

• Sites requiring registration or login

• Archives (newspapers and magazines, etc.) 

• Dynamically created Web pages

• Interactive tools (calculators, etc.)

Useful, but not infallible, web sites:

SUMMARY: Twelve Caveats of Fact Checking  
[Note: there may be more.]

San Francisco Chronicle
Corrections Policy and Procedures
Sept. 13, 2002 

Purpose

In keeping with the highest standards of journalism, this policy will help ensure the accuracy, credibility, fairness, truthfulness and historical value of The Chronicle, its library archives and its online component, The Gate.

Policy

It is the policy of The Chronicle to promptly correct errors of fact and to promptly clarify potentially confusing statements. The policy applies to all newsroom employees.

Errors, whether brought to our attention by readers or staff members, will be corrected quickly and in a straightforward manner.

It will be considered unprofessional conduct and a breach of duty if employees are notified of possible errors but fail to respond. Correcting errors and clarifying ambiguous information is a virtue and an admirable practice.

Procedures

o       All correction requests made of The Chronicle and The Gate will be reported to a section editor or department head and, when possible and practical, to the employee involved, along with a copy to the Readers’ Representative. The request will be recorded by the section editor or department head in the corrections database using the form on the Chronweb home page. Any action taken as a result of the request will likewise be recorded.

o       Correction and retraction demands, whether made orally, by letter or by email, that could lead to legal action must be forwarded immediately by a section editor or department head to our lawyers and to the executive editor. 

o       Section or department heads will personally review corrections prior to publication and take responsibility for ensuring that all errors are set straight. Copies of proposed text will be forwarded to the Readers’ Representative for review.

o       Corrections in the print editions will run on page A-2. Exceptions can be made for legal reasons and for the convenience of readers. Errors in Sunday editions and other non-daily editions will be corrected as soon as possible and again in the subsequent non-daily edition.

o       Corrections to stories in the library and online archives, including The Gate, will be flagged in the header with the words “This story has material that has been corrected.”   The text of the correction will be appended to the top of the story before the headline, following the word CORRECTION.  Spelling errors and less significant mistakes can be corrected without preserving the original text.

o       The Gate will call attention to corrections in two places on the home page: On the left side of the home page under “resources” there will be a “Corrections” link, and also at the bottom of the home page next to “Privacy Policy” there will be a link to “Corrections Policy.”

o       The Gate will post corrections for seven days on its corrections page, which will be available from the home page. Corrections to Chronicle stories will also be available from a corrections link on The Chronicle page. Corrections will remain on any story in The Gate archive.

o       We avoid repeating errors in corrections unless repeating the error will make the correction easier to understand.

o       We avoid assigning blame in corrections. A reporter who believes his or her credibility is damaged due to someone else’s mistake can ask his or her editor to contact the source and exonerate the reporter of `responsibility.

o       As a general rule, corrections should not be made exclusively in follow-up stories, nor should readers who discern inaccuracies be told to set the record straight by writing letters to the editor.  (Corrections made in this manner cannot be ensured of finding their way into the archive or Web site.) While it may be appropriate in the proper circumstances to correct errors in columns and in follow-up stories, these “corrections” must be in addition to another correction that will go on Page A2. 

o       If necessary for clarity, photographs that carried incorrect captions and graphics that contained incorrect information will be rerun as part of the correction.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Articles on Fact Checking:

• "Fact Checking 101." Forbes Magazine's Information Center librarian Linda Stinson in Searcher Magazine, January 1999. 

• "April Fool's Day Follies: Better fact-checking in print could prevent many database errors." University of Hawaii's Department of Information and Computer Sciences associate professor, Peter Jacso in Information Today, April, 2002.

• "A Librarian's Plea to Journalists: Give Us a Clue." Harvard University government documents librarian, Donald Altschiller in Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2002.

• "Adventures in Fact Checking. Are You Completely Bald?" By Richard Blow and Ari Posner in The New Republic, Sept. 26, 1988, p. 23.

• "The Media: Gimme the facts - but check 'em first -- Most journalists would agree that accuracy is a good thing, but are fact-checkers the answer?" By Robert O'Connor in The Guardian (London), October 3, 1988.

• "Is that a fact? Cynthia Cotts." Student Press Review's Carolina Lightcap in Spring 1999. 

• "Adventures in Fact Checking: Do You Still Have Your Arms? -- Take II." by David M. Fine, 1999. 

• "Truth or consequences: inside The New Yorker's fact-checking machine." By Antony Shugaar in Columbia Journalism Review, May/June, 1994. 

• "Chucking the checkers." By Liza Featherstone in Columbia Journalism Review, July/August, 1997.

• "Reading Lightly Can Get You Fired." Inside Medill News, July 27, 1999.

• "To Fact-check: 'We Mean Business.'" American Journalism Review, June/July 2004. [Note: describes plagiarism detection tools used in some newspapers: ithenticate, MyDropBox]

Articles on Newspaper Errors:

• "Getting it right? Not in 59 percent of stories." By Scott Maier in Newspaper Research Journal, Winter 2002.  [Statistical data included about the study of local news stories in The News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. Inaccuracies involved context and perspective, such as hype, misrepresentations and essential information left out.] 

• "Numeracy in the Newsroom: A Case Study of Mathematical Competence and Confidence." By Scott Maier in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Winter 2003. 

• "Corrections: A History of Getting it Right." By Bill Marshall in Media History Digest, Spring 1994.

• "Speeding past red flags." (Editorial on the warning signs of journalistic errors.) By Rem Rieder in American Journalism Review, September 1998. 

• "Accuracy in News Reporting: A Review of the Research." By Michael Singletary in ANPA News Research Report No. 25, January 25, 1980. [Highlights: A review of literature exploring accuracy in newspaper stories. Although the findings do not reveal definite reasons for inaccuracy, several possible error sources are delineated: amount of reporter involvement, type of news, psychological factors (stress, newsmen's fantasies, open-closed-mindedness, "co-orientation"), the editorial process, writing style, imprecision of language and time and competitive pressures.]

• "IQ Software: Can It Help Identify Infojunk?" By Jean Ward in Poynter Report, Summer, 1995. [The answer is "no." Accu-Meter, Stat-Check, Fact-Check, Plagia-Alert are fantasies.]

• "Online Errors Survive to Byte." By Jerry Lanson in Online Journalism Review, July 14, 2000.  

• "Poisoning the Archival Wells." By David House, writer for the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, TX, May 18, 2003. [Describes the aftereffects of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair's extensive plagiarism and falsification of facts on news archives (online and print) throughout the country. 

• "The Lelyveld Speech." In smartertimes.com October 12, 2000. [An internal New York Times report on a speech by executive editor Joseph Lelyveld at at Times Retreat. [Lelyveld's thought for the day: "Sweat the Small Stuff." He draws attention to the number and type of corrections published in the Times.] 

Articles (Online and Print) on News Correction Policies: "War on Errorism"

• "Correction Policies of Online Publications: Setting the Record Straight in the Bazaar of Ideas." By Penghwa Ang and Berlinda Nadarajan. Proceedings of the 1999 INET conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

• "Notes From the Chair: The Church of the True Correction." By Michael Jesse in NewsLibraryNews, Fall, 2002.

• "Details Matter: Accuracy." By Michele McLellan on ASNE's Web site July 23, 2002. [Long article with examples of newspaper accuracy levels and policies.]

• "About Credibility: Resources, Information and Samples." ASNE Web site July 23, 2002.

• San Francisco Chronicle's Corrections Policy and Procedures, 2002   

• "Begging Your Pardon: Corrections and Corrections Policies at Twelve U.S. Newspapers. A Working Paper published by the Gannett Center for Media Studies in 1986. Edited by G. Charles Whitney.

• "Quality Control and the Zen of Database Production." By Anne P. Mintz in Online, November 1990.

• "Calculating the Oops Factor." On the Minnesota News Council's Web site, 1993.

• "Corrections: When the News Media Make Mistakes." By Stephen Hess, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Winter 1993.

• "The War on Errorism." A broadcast of "On the Media" over WNYC on June 20, 2003 with Brooke Gladstone and Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate.

• "Getting it Right: A Passion for Accuracy." By Chip Scanlan posted on Poynter Online, January 21, 2003.

• "Credibility Initiative Show Promise, but must be long-term." Posted on the ASNE Web site on April 11, 2000. [Discusses the ASNE's 1997 "Journalism Credibility Project" and lists examples from several news organizations.

• "Two Faces of Internet Technology." A paper presented by Stan Ketterer at the Second Annual Ethics and Technology Conference in Chicago, June 6-7, 1997. [Author observes, "Although the technology of the Internet helps journalists get information quickly in a highly usable form, it cannot ensure its accuracy nor positively identify its authors."]

• "To Fact-check: 'We Mean Business.'" American Journalism Review, June/July 2004. [Note: describes plagiarism detection tools used in some newspapers: ithenticate, MyDropBox]

Books & Publications of Special Interest for Copy Editors:

• Kill Duck Before Serving: Red Faces at The New York Times. Edited by Linda Amster and Dylan Loeb McClain. St. Martin's Press, 2002.

• The Fact Checker's Bible: a guide to getting it right. By Sarah Harrison Smith. Anchor Books, 2004.

• Copy Editors Handbook for Newspapers. 2nd ed. By Anthony R. Fellow and Thomas N. Clanin. Morton Publishing Co., 2003.

• The Copy-Editing and Headline Handbook. By Barbara G. Ellis. Perseus Publishing, 2001

• They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions. By Paul F. Boller, Jr. & John George. Oxford University Press, 1989.

• Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet. Edited by Anne P. Mintz. CyberAge Books, 2002.

• The Reporter's Handbook: An Investigator's Guide to Documents and Techniques. 3rd ed. By Steve Weinberg. St. Martin's Press, 1996. [Note pages 496-697 describing John Ullmann's "line-by-line accuracy check" procedure.]

• Building Credibility: An Editor's Guide. 1999 Report from the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME)

• A Return to Quality Editing. An April 1997 Report from American Society of Newspaper Editors.

• The Investigated Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases and Techniques. By Brant Houston, Len Bruzzese, Steve Weinberg. Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2002.