I Was Wrong In Article About Lawmaker Pensions
It’s hard to imagine anything worse in our work as journalists than getting a story wrong.
This week I learned that a short piece I wrote criticizing lawmakers for voting to lower pensions for workers without reducing their own was flat-out wrong.
I had read incorrectly late on a Friday and published the article the next morning without double-checking. That’s no excuse.
Legislators have probably developed thick skins over the years, but I still owe them an apology.
But perhaps something good can come from my mistake.
One year after publishing our corrections policy, the error gives me a chance to revisit our approach and tell you what we’ve learned.
One of the strengths of web journalism is that our articles don’t have a short shelf life. It’s not like a newspaper, where people throw out the paper the next morning. Google our articles, and you’ll find them months later. They’re a resource.
That means it’s important to correct them, even months after an error occurred. We mark our articles when we update them so people can know that they’ve been changed. We explain the changes we’ve made and why.
There’s some poetic justice to the timing of our discovery of my error. As we celebrate the Fourth of July weekend and the Declaration of Independence, it’s a good time to reflect on freedom of the press. In some countries, getting it wrong — or even getting it right — in a story about government officials would be cause for punishment. Too many journalists across the globe are punished for their work today. The lives of too many are in danger because of their work.
But here in the United States, we know the Constitution protects the freedom of the press. We know that it’s better for journalists to sometimes get their facts wrong, whether willfully or not, for the press to have occasional errors than to have no freedom at all.
For that I am grateful.
At Civil Beat, we appreciate it when people bring possible errors to our attention. So, please, let us know if you see something that is incorrect. The best way is to email us at news@civilbeat.com.
We’re working to answer questions important to you. If our answers are off kilter, we want to know.
