Mistakes that matter: A quantitative look at newsroom errors

This study investigated accuracy at U.S. daily newspapers with circulations below 25,000. A mailed questionnaire gathered responses from desk editors at 300 randomly selected newspapers.; Editors were less critical of the accuracy at their own newspaper than they were of the print media overall. Editors who took accuracy most seriously were also more likely to notice mistakes in their newspaper and to feel its last big mistake significantly damaged its credibility. The longer editors had worked in journalism, the more likely they were to notice mistakes.; Editors saw more factual errors than errors of meaning. But editors were almost evenly split about which type of error they considered most damaging. Editors thought careless reporting was the biggest cause of errors they had experienced. Using the newspaper's correction box was the most common method of rectifying mistakes. In-house staff training was the most commonly used safeguard. Editors' most common recommendation was hiring more staff.