Reader ‘disillusioned’ with Voice over seemingly insignificant mistake
June 23rd, 2008As a journalist, I understand the seriousness of fact errors. I recall that in one of my reporting courses in college, fact errors were punishable by a 50-point reduction, often resulting in negative scores even when stories were otherwise pretty good. But those penalties paled in comparison to the punishment I took via e-mail this morning from one Bruce Shelton of Dallas. In my 10 years of newspaper experience, I don’t believe I’ve ever received such a scolding for what was, after all, a relatively minor mistake (I know, there’s no such thing in this business.) Anyhow, Bruce pointed out that there was a fact error in my story Friday about local couples who plan to marry in California. I reported that California and New York are the nation’s two most populous states, which is incorrect. Texas is the second most populous state, behind California and followed by New York at No. 3. Fair enough. We’ll correct it. But then Bruce had this to say:
“I was disappointed and a bit disillusioned that the Voice would allow something like this to go overlooked. Perhaps I have unrealistic expectations or ideals to assume facts like this would be researched and verified prior to publication.”
Ouch.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Dang! Ouch! We love you anyway, John!
I thought you might enjoy “44 Tips for Greater Accuracy —How to avoid mechanical/objective errors in your newspaper” http://www.ibiblio.org/copyediting/tips.html
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Thanks for the link, Jeff. Armed with these 44 tips, I feel I’ll be less likely to make a similar mistake in the future. However, the best advice came not in the form of the tips, but from this sentence that’s printed at the end:
“In other words: Have fun, but don’t lose focus.”
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
We should start a support group. You should see some of the stuff we get when we get a single detail incorrect. We hate it when it happens and try to make sure that everything’s been verified, but we’re still humans and things sometimes slip through our multiple layers of editing. At the end of the day, we’re not curing cancer, we’re having fun.
We’ve also gotten some flak for “not being gay enough.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but our website specifically says that we don’t just write about gay things, per se, but rather anything we want from a gay perspective.
You be the judge - http://www.gaylistdaily.com/dallas
June 25th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I am grateful for this blog entry. I have used disillusioned at least five times this week in normal conversation. Rock on.