Mistakes Schmakes

Deb Howell spent yesterday’s column going over the Post’s corrections policy. Her conclusion: The Post’s system is pretty broken for a modern, digital, fast-moving age. The paper doesn’t correct enough things, fast enough, and in the logical place.

“To make its system more accountable, The Post needs a corrections overseer who would act as an appeals court judge and sign off on all corrections — and who would see what correction requests were rejected. That would ensure a more uniform standard. Many newspapers that have ombudsmen or public editors as employees use that avenue for corrections. The Post’s ombudsman has always been an independent contractor — a system I like — and it is more appropriate for a top editor to be in charge of corrections,” she observes.

Of course, better-trained photo pickers would also help. The Reliable Source last week failed twice trying to publish a photograph of singer John Rich:

Mistake #1: “A Reliable Source item in the May 2 Style section was accompanied by an incorrect photograph. The man identified as John Rich from the duo Big & Rich was actually Keith Burns, guitarist for Trick Pony.”

Mistake #2: “A Reliable Source item in the May 4 Style section was accompanied by an incorrect photograph. Because of a mislabeled caption on a photo provided by Getty Images, the man identified as John Rich of Big & Rich was actually Big Kenny, the other member of the duo.”

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