How the Star handles and corrects mistakes
‘Please fix this,’ residents told us when their town’s name was misspelled in print
This story is part of the Star’s trust initiative, where, every week, we take readers behind the scenes of our journalism. This week, we focus on how the Star handles and corrects mistakes.
In this era of the 24-hour, sevendays-a-week news cycle, it’s inevitable that the media will make mistakes — and the Toronto Star is no exception. But it’s how those mistakes are handled that is a marker of a responsible, trustworthy organization.
An error published on thestar.com this week provides an opportunity to go behind the scenes and look at the steps the Star takes to address mistakes and correct them. The mistake in question appeared in a story posted online on Aug. 27 with the headline: “A photo of a dog carrying a bag of food through Texas storm goes viral. Here’s his story.”
As the headline suggests, the piece tells of a resourceful German shepherd mix named Otis that ran away one night in a Texas town only to be found the next day walking down the street carrying a bag of dog food in his mouth. A photo of Otis carrying his food that was taken by a local resident went viral after it was posted to Facebook.
The story, written by a Washington Post reporter, reached the Star shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday. Like many news organizations, the Star pays a subscription fee to other outlets, such as the Washington Post, The Associated Press and the New York Times, for the rights to publish their stories. These stories, and any updates, are delivered electronically throughout the day on what is known in newsroom vocabulary as “the wire.”
The story incorrectly stated that Otis came from the Texas town of “Stinton.” A caption for a photo of Otis and his owner’s grandfather that accompanied the story noted the same. The name of the town is, in fact, Sinton.
Several residents of Sinton contacted the Star directly to alert the newsroom of the problem.
“I’m thrilled to see a story go viral about my hometown, so I thought I’d let y’all know that the town’s name is Sinton, not Stinton,” wrote one reader to the Star’s public editor Kathy English. The Star established its public editor’s office in 1972 to address issues of accuracy, fairness and ethics related to the newspaper’s journalism.
“You misspelled sinton its not stinton! And we’re proud of our community so please fix this!” wrote another.
“The Star has an obligation to provide its readers with accurate information and when it errs, it must set the record straight,” English said in an interview. “We take seriously all reports of errors.”
As with every error report, English or associate public editor Maithily Panchalingam first set out to determine whether an error has indeed been made. In this case, English looked up the town on Google to determine its correct spelling. She also found other online versions of the story that correctly spelled the town’s name.
“I then made the call to go ahead and correct the online article, confident that readers’ information and my own research indicated the Star had published incorrect information,” she said.
Errors are not always so easy to discern. English and Panchalingam often speak directly with reporters, editors, newsmakers and readers to determine whether a story is accurate, or whether it needs to be corrected at someone’s request. If they determine an error has been made, the Star corrects on any and all platforms on which the error was published as quickly as possible.
The Washington Post did not send a correction notice over the wire. The version of this story on its own website had the correct spelling of the town’s name. The Star reached out to the Washington Post and received an automated response saying the inquiry had been received.
The Star’s deputy foreign editor, Ed Tubb, said the Star usually trusts its wire services to check facts and issue corrections if necessary.
“If this was a story from a Star reporter, I’d be working with him or her to fact check the story for things like this before publishing — and I’d call him or her up to confirm an error if we missed one. I’m not in a position to do that with a reporter who’s working for an editor in Washington or New York,” Tubb said.
The Sinton error was corrected on thestar.com on Aug. 28. As per the Star’s policy, a correction was added to the bottom of the story to indicate it had been changed: “This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the name of the Texas town. It is Sinton, not Stinton.”
“I loved the fact that this mattered to the residents of this town even in the midst of a hurricane — major evidence that a mistake always matters to somebody,” English said, noting that she believes being transparently accountable for mistakes and correcting them promptly is the foundation of reader trust.
English’s office keeps a log of all corrections that she summarizes in a report to the publisher at the end of the year. This report includes how many corrections were made in each department, whether this represents an increase or decrease from the previous year, and key error types.
“While no one likes to make a mistake, the culture at the Star is largely aligned with owning up to mistakes,” English said.
“A correction is always a strong reminder of the importance of taking great care in our responsibilities to our readers.” Email your questions to trust@thestar.ca.