Error-free
Comment by Rick Reiff
LAST WEEK WE RAN A PAGE 3 CORRECTION (ACTUALLY, A clarification) of something we’d reported. It was the first time we had to use the correction box in two and a half months. We’d gone nine straight issues without an official error.
That’s quite a string, given the hundreds of pages of reporting over that span. Typically, we need to run a page 3 correction every second or third week.
Now, we’re not so naive to think that there weren’t any mistakes of grammar or fact in those recent issues. That’s a virtual impossibility for a publication churning out thousands of bits of information each week as it tries to capture “history on the run.”
Yet nothing came to our attention that required us to “set the record straight.” That’s an achievement akin to a hitting streak in baseball: It requires luck, but also skill. It speaks, I think, to the high caliber of reporting and editing at the OCBJ; the editorial staff is filled with accomplished journalists who understand business in general and their beats in particular.
We don’t want readers to help us with this sort of a streak, by the way. Tell us when we make mistakes. Unlike some publications, we try not to be defensive about ‘fessin’ up when we screw up. Our readers expect accuracy from us and we expect it from ourselves, better late than never.
But it’s preferable, of course, to get it right the first time. Please note we’ve started another streak with this issue.
, Rick Reiff
