One of the points that Times Higher editor John O'Leary made in Vilnius that caught my attention was to encourage press officers to seek corrections when wrong information was included in newspapers and particularly when this would also be carried on websites. If memory serves, the example he gave was league tables that would be referred to until the next survey came along.
This struck several chords, and not least in highlighting a differences in approach between traditional and social medias - or, plainly, papers and blogs. The first draft of my post about the tensions in Vilnius included a line saying a Dutch colleague had reminded me that his country's gay ambassador to Lithuania had quit because of the public abuse suffered by his black boyfriend. Journalistic habit kicked in, I checked, and the country wasn't Lithuania. If I had got it wrong I would probably have corrected it with an update.
Likewise, there has been an interesting debate on Andrea Weckerle's New Millennium PR that began with a clearly well-intentioned post highlighting what appeared to be the unpleasant sacking of a kindly charity worker. Unpicking the ethical issues raisd by the subsequent debate deserves separate attention; suffice to say, Andrea deserves significant credit for going to great lengths to untangle the issues raised in as open and transparent way as she can.
While there are many reasons why I don't suggest that a newspaper should follow a similar path I can see a strong case for learning from blogging etiquette. The UK Guardian, with its corrections and clarifications column, backed up by an excellent readers' editor, sets a strong example of good newspaper practice.
But, unless I am missing something, when you click back from the correction, you find the original story in its original state. Should they rewrite the story? Should they add the correction as a dated change?
Over the next few days I will try and find out more about policy in these areas - and try to examine my own blogging practice, too!
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