Star’s errors:

Report on the Star’s errors: Who are you going to blame?

April 27, 2012
Kathy English

Star readers knew the animal slain by Donald Trump Jr. in Africa was a cape buffalo, not a wildebeest.

Are you smarter than the average Star journalist working on constant round-the-clock deadlines to report, write, edit and, increasingly, blog, tweet and shoot photos and video, too?
Do you know the answers to the following? Or do you have to check a source?
 • Who stayed at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in 1939: A) King George VI or King George IV?
 • Who created Diorissmo perfume: A) Edmond Roudnitska or B) Guy Robert?
 • Who was a key Canadian spy figure of World War II: A) Owen Roberts or B) Arthur Owens?
 • What is the capital of Australia: A) Canberra or B) Sydney?
 • Is Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, part of A) Russia or B) Ukraine?
 • Who are the only two quarterbacks to have won four Super Bowl titles?
 • How many Academy Awards for best director has Steven Spielberg won?
 • Is the animal in this photo, shot down recently in Africa by Donald Trump Jr., A) a wildebeest or B) a cape buffalo?
The answers, if you didn’t know, are: A, A, B, A, B, Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw, two, and B) a cape buffalo.
In recent months, the wrong information in all of the above was published in the Star. Readers brought each of these errors to our attention, the norm in most mistakes requiring correction. Indeed, our readers play a significant role in the ongoing accuracy of the Star.
In the first three months of 2012, the Star has published 123 corrections. Only 31 of these mistakes were reported to me by the newsroom journalists who erred. I don’t think that’s because journalists aim to hide their mistakes. Most often, they haven’t realized their error until it’s raised by a reader or source.
Readers and sources pointed out the majority of those errors with 58 error reports coming from readers and 34 from sources.
While the Star has long encouraged readers to report errors for correction, easy access to digital information about almost anything means every reader is now a fact checker. There was a day when you may have questioned whether that animal was in fact a wildebeest, but not be so sure as to question a newspaper. Now, via the magic of Google, instant encyclopedic verification is available to all.
Indeed, in the case involving Trump Jr. and the beast he bagged, dozens of readers called or emailed to tell the Star that the animal in the photo was certainly not a wildebeest. Given that I didn’t have a clue about the animal’s identity (had to use Google to check too), it surprised me that so many readers caught the Star out on this.
I have posed many questions for you here but the big question of course is why do such basic factual errors occur in the Star? Why did readers have to tell journalists of Canada’s largest circulation newspaper that the capital of Australia is Canberra?
If readers can so easily Google for accurate information, why can’t the Star’s journalists do so before mistakes are published?
Of course readers don’t operate on deadlines. Still with corrections up more than 50 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared to last — from 80 in the first three months of 2011 to 123 in 2012 — these are important questions for the newsroom.
My corrections data indicate the majority of mistakes were made by writers; 93 of the 123 corrections were attributed to reporters, columnists and freelancers. Only 25 were classified as editing errors.
But it’s too simplistic to lay all the blame for errors on writers. Writers working on deadline have long depended on eagle-eyed copy editors to catch minor errors and double-check basic facts. A newsroom has always been a team operation.
But the digital 24/7 newsroom has brought more deadlines and more demands for writers and editors alike. A decade ago, who would have known that newspaper writers would now be shooting and editing video?
It’s not unusual for writers who’ve made mistakes in the rush to deadline to feel humiliated and take ownership but also lament the fact that an editor didn’t catch their error. But the reality in most every newsroom in North America is fewer editors editing more work on tighter deadlines for the paper and websites than in past years.
As one Star writer caught out by a reader this week for a grammatical gaffe in his first sentence of an online file told me: “I accept full responsibility for my work. I was sloppy.”
But he added, “I can't recall the last time a Star editor called me to ask about what appeared to him or her to be a mistake in my copy, which routinely happened in my first eight years here.
“I really think we need a Star-wide discussion about this,” he added.
Given the significant increase in errors our smart readers have found, I think that’s a fact we can all agree on.