| Research has demonstrated that corrections in printed newspapers build credibility (e.g. Nemeth and Sanders, 2009; Shepard, 1998; LaRocque, 2005). Cultivating credibility has become increasingly important as recent findings from the Pew Research Center (2011) suggest that readers have the most negative opinions about news organizations since it began tracking such perceptions in 1985. Among its findings was the statistic that 66 percent of those surveyed said stories are inaccurate. However, the Pew Research Center (2010) also reported that consumption of news is increasing online where the majority of content is still supplied by traditional sources such as newspapers. While most newspapers do have a website, not all of the traditions and practices of newspapers, such as corrections, have translated to this online platform. Cornish (2010), Ang and Nadarajan (1999) and Maier (2009) call for a standard of practice in online corrections. This research provides an industry recommendation as to how corrections should be handled online---where they should be located---that is the result of interviews with senior editors (past and current) and a survey of more than 100 senior editors (n = 107) at newspapers around the country. The dominant recommendation was that corrections should be appended to the original article where the error occurred, which is a contrast to the tradition of anchoring corrections in a printed product. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, along with opportunities for future research. |
