Readers of the Washington Post and Register Citizen find it easier and more efficient to report mistakes with the launching of “report an error” forms.

It’s not an everyday occurrence that newspapers make mistakes. But when they do, it’s usually their readers who point out these mistakes. However, many news sites are without a process that makes it convenient for readers to submit requests for corrections. Readers wind up sending e-mails to those they’ll never get a reply from or identifying errors only in comments sections.

To remedy this, the Washington Post launched on February 7 its “report an error” form, which encourages readers to do just that—report an error. However, the feature (created by Greg Linch and Hal Straus of the Post) wasn’t shown on every story page until after the launch of the Post’s site redesign in mid-March. The form requests readers to identify the type of error, the section it appears in, and the URL of the article, blog post, video, etc., where the error was spotted. It also asks the following: “What is the specific error and how can we fix it?” and “What do we need to know to improve future stories on this topic?”

Raju Narisetti, managing editor of the Post, shared, “I had been wanting to make it easier for our online audience to flag errors or suggest ways for us to improve stories.”

Approximately 540 people had used the form to submit corrections, suggestions, and tips as of two weeks ago. According to Narisetti, correction requests for those that appear to be errors are initially sent to section editors. They are then entered in the Post’s internal database to keep track of correction requests. Of the 540 requests, 32 identified factual errors and 180 identified grammatical errors and bad links, roughly one-third of which dealt with photo captions. The rest were simply readers’ opinions about stories. “Someone will write in saying, ‘You got it all wrong,’” Narisetti disclosed.

At times, readers expressing such opinions raise valid points and alert journalists to “big-picture errors”—that is, when journalists completely miss the point of the story. And sadly, there is presently no effective means of recognizing such errors.

Meanwhile, the Post’s ombudsman Patrick Pexton revealed that he gets about five to ten correction requests per week. Pexton claims that even though factual errors have been revised, the corrections still felt insufficient. “We should write corrections without hesitation or shame, but they never fully compensate for the error.”

In the weeks to follow, Pexton has planned to monitor how well the “report an error” form is working and how fast editors act in response. “My experience so far is that they respond pretty quickly. I think they’re a little more responsive when it comes directly from the ombudsman because they’re afraid I’m going to write about it,” he stated.

Referring to the Post’s Web site, Narisetti divulged, “We have been very successful in growing our audience, but we haven’t been as successful in keeping them engaged.” Narisetti hopes that with this feature, the Post will “become more aware of the errors it makes and build trust.” Further, the form also ties in with the redesign’s goals—to attract more readers and let them engage with its content more. “This increases engagement because we’re being responsive to readers, and there’s significant value in that.”

Narisetti shared, “In any given year, we end up running between 600 and 800 corrections, which is pretty low given the volume of content we put out.”

Theoretically, the Post’s and other similar “report an error” features would aid in news organizations becoming more aware of the errors they make and thus decreasing their chances of repeating the same errors in the future, which could very well lessen the number of corrections they run yearly.

However, the total number of errors that remain uncorrected still outweighs the number of corrections in importance. Regarding the subject, MediaBugs creator Scott Rosenberg has said, “Using ‘total number of errors corrected’ as a metric for how well a newsroom is doing is problematic. A low number could mean ‘we get stuff right’ or it could mean ‘we really resist correcting our mistakes.’” Less than 2 percent of factual errors cited by news sources are corrected, research has claimed. “Report an error” features should help increase this percentage, as they “give readers an easier way to request corrections” and “make it harder for news organizations to ignore them.”

The Register Citizen, according to its publisher Matt DeRienzo, is much more informed of the corrections it needs to implement since the May 2010 launch of its own fact-check form. The paper then changed its form to reflect the Post’s after seeing the latter’s version, resulting in more thoughtful and higher-quality comments from readers—with legitimate correction requests 80 percent of the time.

The Register Citizen runs three to four corrections a week, with very few of them addressing big-picture errors. “That’s where we need to change. If you think about all the corrections of poor context or missing context, there’s a ton of that,” disclosed DeRienzo.

Nearly all of the seventeen remaining Journal Register Company’s daily papers now have fact-check boxes on their sites, DeRienzo said. The Huffington Post, the Toronto Star, and others also have similar correction forms. With these forms, news organizations will be able to connect with their readers more and show that they care. Narisetti added, “What we are trying to say is that like many large newsrooms, we are human. We make mistakes, we correct them quickly, and we apologize and move on.”

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For the full article, visit http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/126262/washington-post-redesign-features-report-an-error-form-making-it-easier-to-report-mistakes-and-respond/.