Prime
Newspapers correct errors, how about TV and radio?
Odoobo C. Bichachi
What you need to know:
Building confidence in readers. Many corrections and clarifications in the print media are therefore routinely published. This does not only set the record straight, it also builds confidence in the readers that the newspaper is responsible and takes seriously its commitment to reporting the facts, the truth and in a balanced manner that gives voice to all sides of the story.
For Daily Monitor, this spot lies to the left of Page 2 with this note to its readers: “The Monitor endeavours to get everything it publishes correct. When mistakes are made, we want to know, and a correction will be published as soon as possible. Please notify us of any needed correction at [email protected] or by writing to the editor.”
While this is a good mechanism to get reader feedback and correct any errors and misrepresentations, experience across the media worldwide has shown that most editors do not like to admit that they were wrong and therefore will sometimes sweep under the carpet complaints about errors from the public.
It is in part for this reason that media organisations have created an ombudsman or public editor to ensure the feedback from the public is received and acted on.
Many corrections and clarifications in the print media are therefore routinely published. This does not only set the record straight, it also builds confidence in the readers that the newspaper is responsible and takes seriously its commitment to reporting the facts, the truth and in a balanced manner that gives voice to all sides of the story.
Admittedly, many errors still do not get corrected but as they say, half a loaf in better than no bread at all!
While all is clear for the print medium, Herbert wonders what happens to other medium, specifically broadcast, when errors are committed. He wrote to me asking: “How come newspapers have always printed ‘corrections’ regarding past printed mistakes, but television (or radio for that matter) never has any kind of programme at the end of the week highlighting mistakes that were made on their channel?”
I put this question to the deputy head of news at NTV-Uganda, Williams Kato, and this was his response: “We do it as and when it is necessary. In most cases, the anchor will make a correction in that very bulletin. Once or twice we have done a follow-up story to correct the misrepresentation. Kindly note that we don’t receive many complaints.”
I put the same issue to Catherine Ageno, broadcast editor of KFM radio. She explained: “We do receive complaints through interaction with our audience on social media, website and direct phone calls. Upon receiving the complaint, the error is assessed to decide if there is merit to it before the relevant correction is made. The correction is done on air and online. There are, however, cases that require instant correction during the bulletin by the anchor as soon as it is realised (eg mispronunciation of names of people, places or companies). To learn from our past mistakes, we are in the process of setting up a system of monitoring of corrections and using them as an accuracy checklist in the newsroom.”
While indeed television and radio bulletins do not elicit as much complaints as print in part because these are transient media and many viewers/listeners simply chose to shrug and move on, it is important to have a fixed and consistent minute of two, perhaps after the bulletin or in the morning current affairs programmes to correct errors. When viewers/listeners get accustomed to this, they will tune in and will have more confidence and respect for the broadcast platforms.
As Dan Gillmor, a longtime participant in new media and digital media literacy says, “forthright corrections and major updates are an essential kind of transparency” for the media. Unfortunately, this is not happening as much as it should for broadcast and new media. Even for the print where it is routinely done, it is simply perfunctory.
Again, Gillmor captures it very well: “I’m old enough to remember what journalistic corrections looked like in the traditional media era of print and broadcast. In newspapers, corrections (when they were done) lived on Page 2, where they showed up days or weeks after the original error. They rarely contained enough context for the reader — even someone who’d read the original story — to understand what had happened. Broadcast radio and TV corrections were, and remain, almost nonexistent.”
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