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January 1982
Newspaper Errors: Reporters Dispute Most Source Claims Newspaper Errors: Reporters Dispute Most Source Claims
William A. Tillinghast
San Jose State University
, William.Tillinghast@sjsu.edu
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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
William A. Tillinghast. "Newspaper Errors: Reporters Dispute Most Source Claims"
Newspaper Research
Journal
(1982): 15-23.
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by William A. Tillinghast
Newspaper Errors:
Reporters Dispute Most
Source Claims
Deep probe of disagreements
suggests errors are really
differences of opinion between
sources and reporters.
Research on newspaper accuracy
has shown that news sources con-
tend that about half the newspaper
articles citing them contain at least
one mistake^—usually a misquote,
omission or distorted emphasis.
But, most ofthe half dozen studies
which examined errors in news-
papers excluded the reporter from
the analysis, concentrating almost
entirely on the perceptions of news
sources. One study which did look
at reporter response found that a
reporter's focusing on a particular
element of a story, considered an
"extremely newsworthy angle" by
the reporter, can be considered
an error of overemphasis by the
source.^
Reporter-source disagreement over
such things as story angle and even
whether the reporter considers a
source-perceived error to actually
be an error has been neglected in
past
research.
This investigation was
designed to look at reporter percep-
tions of error, as well as source per-
ceptions, and to determine some of
the causes of error in newspaper
stories. The study examines whether
error varies by reporter experience,
by deadline, and by type of content
or length.
Although reporter views are gen-
erally not known, the number of
stories containing error, according
to sources in five major source ac-
curacy studies dating from the 1930s,
ranges from 40% to 60% of all lo-
cally produced news items.^ The
perceived rate of error in these five
studies ranges from three to six mis-
takes in every four stories. Between
half and two-thirds of these source-
perceived errors are judgmental
determinations, depending on how
misquotes are classified.
Berry* listed subjective errors as
including omissions, distortions of
Dr. Tillinghast is associate professor of
journalism at San Jose State University. This
study was part of a research project funded
by the American Newspaper Publishers
Association.
15
underemphasis and overemphasis,
and faulty headlines. Misquotes
were considered as objective errors
along with typographical errors in-
volving spellings, times, dates, ad-
dresses, titles, facts or numbers.
However, Blankenburg^ notes that
headlines and misquotes do not fit
easily into either class.
Other studies have found that in-
accuracies appear to increase or de-
crease depending on content, news
story structure and the time avail-
able to process the information.
Although mistakes in general news
items occur at a rate of .75 to 1.5
errors per story, specialized issue
stories, such as science, have an
error rate of 2.16 to 6.2 errors per
story.^ The number of error-free
stories ranges from a low of
9%
to a
high of 31%.
In addition, the inverted pyramid
is considered a hazard to accuracy^
because it is harder to understand
than a narrative structure.^ Finally,
although more time
to
process infor-
mation lessens the occurrence of
objective errors, it increases the
rate of subjective errors.^
Studies concentrating on the
causes of error have found reporters
and sources agreeing on two main
causes of subjective error: insuffi-
cient background information and
news desk editing policies.^° A sur-
vey of editors cited reporter haste
and carelessness as major causes of
error with editing only a minor con-
tributor.^^
This accumulated knowledge helps
point out a lack of specific informa-
tion in the three research question
areas:
1) D o reporters agree with sour-
ces on the amount of error in the
news? D o they agree on the type
of error?
2) D o crime or government news
contain more or less errors than
general news? Is deadline-related
error a function of time available to
gather informaiton or of time avail-
able to write it? D o more experien-
ced reporters make fewer errors?
3) D o reporters consider errors
in general and their admitted errors
to be caused by the same factors? To
what extent do they attribute source
misperception of something as an
error?
Examination ofthe reporter per-
spective should contribute
to a
more
effective method of pinpointing error
causes and areas of source-reporter
disagreement. Once pinpointed, er-
rors are more likely to be eliminated,
and disagreements more likely to be
understood even if not resolved.
Methodology and Background
The author spent four weeks in
the summer of 1980 observing new-
sroom news fiow, time pressures,
staff-management structure and
espirit de corps at two Knight-
Ridder newspapers, the morning
San Jose Mercury and the after-
noon San Jose News, which serve
the southern portion ofthe
San
Fran-
cisco Bay area.
Each day, nearly all by lined local-
ly produced news items were cate-
gorized by length and content. The
respective city
or
metro desk editors
evaluated each story
in terms
of dead-
line pressures.
The articles were then mailed to
the news sources along with
a
ques-
tionnaire seeking source perception
of
error.
The 270 returned articles,
54%
of the original sample, were
16
then evaluated by 47 reporters who
completed questionnaires on spe-
cific source claims of error in their
copy.
The morning Mercury, circula-
tion about 156,000, and the after-
noon News, with about 68,000 cir-
culation, share the same newsroom.
Although the two papers do have
separate city desk structures, as well
as spearate general assignment and
police reporters, pool reporters who
work for both papers cover the major
beats—city hall, county govern-
ment, science and environment—
plus handle the investigative report-
ing. The photographers also work
for both papers.
The Mercury-News has six area
bureaus and a statehouse bureau.
The papers combine Saturday and
Sunday editions which are pro-
duced by the Mercury staff with
some copy contributed by the News
reporters.
General
Findings
Sources said 47% of the 270
locally produced news articles con-
tained errors. The sources classi-
fied 246 mistakes, an error rate
of .91 per story. Both the overall
amount of perceived inaccuracies
and the type of error percentages
perceived are comparable to prior
findings.
If a news source spots what he or
she considers to be an error in the
paper, the odds are about
two
to one
that it is a subjective, rather than an
objective error.*^ The 63 % per-
ceived subjective errors were class-
ified
as:
omissions,
19%;
misquotes,
10%;
underemphasis, 9%; overem-
phasis, 9%; headline distortions,
6%; and the "other" category,
10%.
Slightly more than one third of all
source-perceived errors were objec-
tive errors. The breakdown of this
36%
was: general factual errors,
21% ;
wrong numbers, 5%; mis-
spelled names, 4%; other misspell-
ings,
2%; and wrong ages, times,
dates and locations, 1% each.
Reporter Agreement
Excluding headlines, normally
not the responsibility of the re-
porter, sources specified 200 news
copy errors and said that only 53 %
of the stories were free of error.
However, reporters disputed 78%
ofthe error claims. And even when
reporters agreed that a particular
article contained mistakes, the re-
porters said half of them did not con-
tain as many errors as the sources
said.
The reason reporters dispute more
than three-fourths of the source
claims of error may not be brushed
off simply as source mispercep-
tions.
If such were the case, reporter
disagreement would be fairly con-
sistent across different groups of
re-
porters. Such is not the case.
Although all reporters are more
likely to disagree than to agree with
sources on charges of error, the
older, more-experienced reporters
are significantly more likely to agree.
Table
1
indicates reporters over age
35 and those with more than
10
years
professional experience are about
three times more willing to admit
they made a mistake than are their
younger, less-experienced col-
leagues. The latter sharply dispute
source claims, disagreeing with
about 85% ofthe source claims of
error.
However, the more pro-
fessionally mobile a reporter has
17
TABLE 1: Reporter Agreement/Disagreement With Source Claims
of Error
Number of
Reporter's Age
Errors
35 Or Younger
109
36 Or Older
91
Number of Years
In Journalism
Under 10 Years
89
10 Years Or More
111
Number Of Papers
Worked For
1 Or 2 papers
59
3 Or More Papers
141
Type Of Error
Objective Error
84
Subjective Error
116
been, the less likely the reporter
is
to
agree with sources who claim there
are mistakes. Reporters who worked
on only one
or
two newspapers were
about three times more likely to
agree they had erred than were the
reporters who worked for three or
more newspapers.
Just as important as reporter ex-
perience in agreement is the type of
error being claimed by the source.
The fact that reporters appear to
agree
with
only between 20 and 25%
of the source claims is misleading
unless the type of error is con-
sidered.
Although reporters are willing to
admit about
half,
46%, of what
Percentage Of
Agreement
Disagreement
14%
86%
40
60
17.96;
p<.00 1
16%
84%
33
67
= 8.63; p < .01
47%
53 %
16
84
21.44;
p<.00 1
46%
54%
5
95
21.44;
p<.00 1
sources consider to be objective
errors of fact, misspellings or inac-
curate numbers, the reporters rarely
agree with subjective error claims.
The reporters dispute 95% of the
source claims of omissions, mis-
quotes and distorted emphases.
Variations in Error
Structural constraints on the news
were perceived as having a direct
effect on news error but reporter
experience and deadline pressures
were not. Sources claim longer
stories contain more mistakes than
shorter items
and
that certain topics,
notably general interest and govern-
18