Correction Notice

Correction Notice

Errors happen. The failure this exists to prevent is the quiet edit: a published claim changed without a note, which is indistinguishable from never having made it and which the reader who saw the original will notice.

When to use

• An error in something published is reported or discovered.
• A story's meaning has changed since it ran.

Steps

1. Open the corrections row before deciding what to do. Recording it first is what stops the decision being made by whoever finds it least convenient.
2. Establish whether it is actually wrong. unfounded is a legitimate close and needs the reasoning; a complaint is not proof.
3. Classify by whether it changes the meaning. A wrong middle initial and a wrong allegation are not the same class and do not get the same treatment.
4. Correct in public. A correction note on the piece, an update, or a retraction — never a silent edit, and never only on social.
5. Tell whoever raised it, and anyone named adversely by the error.
6. Record how it got through — single source, misread document, transcription. This is the field that changes practice; everything else only records failure.

Output

A published correction proportionate to the error, the row closed with how, and — where the same cause has appeared before — a note to the operator, because that is a standards question rather than a story one.