newsroom_corrections v1.0.0

name: newsroom_corrections description: "Run corrections in a newsroom: tell a correction from a clarification, an update, an editor's note, and a retraction, verify the complaint against a primary source, write the note so readers see what was wrong and what is right, handle right of reply before and after publication, and keep the log that shows error patterns over time. Ships decision rules, note formats by error type with worked examples, a note checker, and a log report script. Triggers on requests like we got something wrong, a reader is demanding a correction, should this be a correction or a clarification, write a correction note, they want the story taken down, or what do our corrections say about our reporting."

Newsroom Corrections

Purpose

Every newsroom gets things wrong. What separates one readers trust from one they do not is the hour after the error surfaces: whether the complaint gets checked fairly, whether the fix is labelled honestly, and whether anyone looks at the pattern afterwards. This skill runs that hour and the month after it. It decides which kind of note a case needs, verifies before it concedes or refuses, writes the note in the format for that error type, handles the subject's right of reply, and keeps a log that turns single embarrassments into a short list of process fixes.

The standards behind it are the published ones: AP news values and principles, the SPJ Code of Ethics, BBC editorial guidelines on accuracy, and Poynter reporting on Washington Post practice and on unpublishing. Summaries and source links are in the run notes an editor can ask for. Nothing in this skill rests on an unsourced response time table or a trust statistic.

Workflow

1. Open the log row first. Before checking anything, add the case to the corrections log with the date, the story, who reported it, and the claim in their words. The schema is in references/log-schema.md. Opening the row at intake stops the quiet cases, the ones settled in a phone call, from vanishing.

1. Verify the complaint against a primary source. Go to the document, the recording, the confirmed minutes, the official data, or the person named, not to the reporter's memory and not to a secondary write up. Three outcomes are possible: the story was wrong, the story was right, or the story was right in its words and wrong in its impression. If the complainant is the only source for the claim that you erred, treat that claim the way you would treat any single source claim in a story. Reporters who spot a possible error in their own outlet raise it with a supervising editor at once, which AP requires of its staff and NPR's handbook frames as a duty.

1. Decide the note type with references/decision-rules.md. Wrong fact: correction. Accurate but misleading: clarification. Story moved on: update. The piece itself changed or a decision about it needs explaining: editor's note. Central claim cannot be supported: retraction, escalated. Someone wants the piece gone: work the unpublishing tests in the decision rules, where correcting is the default and removal is the exception. Record the decision and the reasoning in the log, including no note cases.

1. Check severity and right of reply before drafting. Severity (harmful, material, minor, defined in the decision rules) sets prominence and whether an apology is owed. Then ask whether the subject has had, or still needs, a fair chance to respond: before publication that duty covers criticism and allegations, and after publication it covers a subject who says the correction itself is wrong. Put allegations to them in detail, state a deadline, record attempts and means. A reply informs the note. It never vetoes an accurate one.

1. Fix the story and draft the note from references/note-formats.md. Fix the wrong passage in the story itself, then write the note in the format for that error type: label first, date, what was wrong in the words it was published in, the correct information in full, an apology when the error could have harmed someone. Do not assign blame to a person or a role in the public note. The Washington Post dropped role blame from its corrections for exactly this reason: the outlet published the error, the outlet owns it.

1. Run the checker on the draft: python3 scripts/check_note.py note.txt. It tests the label, the statement of what was wrong, the statement of the right information, the date, blame wording, length, and apology wording. Fix every FAIL before the note ships. The checker judges shape, never facts. The editor who verified step 2 judges facts.

1. Publish at the prominence the error had, and push it where the error travelled. Note on the story, entry in the public corrections listing, correction in the same broadcast slot where that applies, a correcting post on the social accounts that carried the wrong version, and a corrective sent to partners or outlets that picked the story up. If verification of a harmful error will take a while, post the holding note from the formats file now and replace it when the check finishes.

1. Close the log row with the outcome. Fill in type, error class, severity, hours to correct, and cause in plain specific words: the step that produced the error, not a shrug. A correction to a correction gets its own row.

1. Read the pattern monthly: python3 scripts/log_report.py log.csv. Work repeat causes first, then slow cases, then the mix of who finds your errors. A cause with three or more entries gets a process fix with an owner and a date. The monthly read is part of the job, written into references/log-schema.md, because a log nobody reads changes nothing.

Output Contract

• The decision, one line per case: note type or no note, severity, and the primary source the verdict rests on.
• The corrected story, with the wrong passage fixed and nothing else quietly rewritten.
• The note, in the format for its error type, passing scripts/check_note.py with no FAIL rules.
• The right of reply record: who was contacted, what was put to them, the deadline given, the attempts and means, and their response or the fact of none.
• The completed log row, or rows, including no note decisions.
• Monthly, the log report: counts by type, error class, section, and cause, median and slowest time to correct, slow cases named, and repeat causes each with the process fix agreed.

Operating Rules

• Label honestly. A factual error is a correction. Never dress it as a clarification, an update, a fix, or a recast to make it sting less. AP bans those softer words for factual errors, and readers notice the dodge.
• Verify before conceding and before refusing. A loud complaint is not proof, and a confident reporter is not proof either. The primary source settles it.
• State what was wrong. A note that only gives the new version leaves readers who saw the old one unsure anything changed. The Washington Post practice of stating the error exactly is the standard to copy.
• Never stealth edit a material error. Changing the sentence and saying nothing breaks the record for everyone who quoted, screenshotted, or acted on the first version.
• Correcting beats unpublishing. Removal is reserved for exceptional cases such as a serious standards breach, a court order, or a safety risk, and even then a note at the address says something was removed and why, unless law or safety forbids it.
• Speed follows verification, in that order, and the gap stays short. Publish the note as soon as the fact is settled. For a harmful error that needs longer checking, the holding note goes up at once.
• No blame in public, real cause in private. The note owns the error as the outlet. The log names the step that failed so it can be fixed, which is a different thing from naming a person to shame.
• Legal advice for the dangerous ones. A possibly defamatory error or a retraction goes past legal counsel before the note publishes, as BBC guidance directs. Counsel tunes the wording. Counsel does not decide whether readers get told.
• One standard for everyone. The same rules apply to a story about a powerful official and a story about a private person, to errors your side likes and errors it hates. A corrections policy applied unevenly is a public relations policy.