Mistakes and typos are unacceptable, but we need to see them in perspective
What you need to know:
- A survey of 14 daily newspapers across the United States, reported in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 82, No.3 Autumn 2005, found that more than 60 per cent of local news and news features had errors. The severity of the errors ranged from misspellings to factual errors.
- Some of the world’s leading newspapers have daily columns devoted to corrections and senior editors who deal exclusively with errors. The New York Times, for example, has a senior editor and a news assistant who deal with corrections.
- David Gitau, one of the many other readers who have complained, says: “On a daily basis we are assaulted by bad grammar, poor construction of sentences, and shocking syntax. There are many typing errors and even spelling mistakes in these days of spell-checking software.”
If you have a copy of the Daily Nation of August 3, 1982, you are the proud owner of a collector’s item, probably worth a small fortune.
It is the only newspaper that managed to come out, two days after the chaotic and bloody attempted coup of August 1. It was produced under very difficult circumstances with a skeleton staff and is chock-full of typos and grammatical errors.
The errors looked so bad that we felt the shame. We apologised to our readers in the following day’s paper on the front page. I was pleasantly surprised when a few days later the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nairobi, Prof Joseph Mungai — God rest his soul — told me: “We were so happy to get the paper to find out what was happening that we didn’t care about typographical errors.”
Even when there are no coups, newspapers make mistakes — typographical, grammatical, and factual. Journalists are human, and newspapers all over the world, from The New York Times to The Sowetan, do make mistakes — frequently — for a number of reasons, including the speed with which news is produced, misinformed news sources, use of documents that have errors, carelessness, lack of research, or failure on the part of reporters to comprehend and interpret the information they seek to report.
Some of the world’s leading newspapers have daily columns devoted to corrections and senior editors who deal exclusively with errors. The New York Times, for example, has a senior editor and a news assistant who deal with corrections.
60 PER CENT
A survey of 14 daily newspapers across the United States, reported in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 82, No.3 Autumn 2005, found that more than 60 per cent of local news and news features had errors. The severity of the errors ranged from misspellings to factual errors.
“Even with computer spell-checkers, journalists still have difficulty,” the survey says. “Typographical and spelling errors (including misspelled names) accounted for nearly 10 per cent of factual errors.”
Newspapers are expected to make mistakes. Philip Meyer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill contends that a press without errors is a press without journalistic guts.
He says a newspaper without errors is a newspaper that is taking too few risks. The public, he says, does not expect newspapers to be perfect.
An exploratory study in Switzerland and Italy reported in January 2012 found comparable levels of inaccuracy, providing evidence that newspaper inaccuracy “transcends national borders and journalism cultures.” In Switzerland, for example, the study found errors in 60 per cent of Swiss newspaper stories reviewed.
In Kenya, grammatical errors seem to predominate in the English language media. I still remember a stinging internal memo that I received one day in March 1982.
“This morning’s paper,” the memo said, “is a travesty of the English language. That we have reporters and sub-editors capable of this is beyond belief.” The memo, by a representative of the publisher, was copied to the chairman of the company’s board.
ON A DAILY BASIS
Coming back to the Daily Nation more than 30 years later, I still find myself bombarded with complaints about grammatical errors. There is no place to hide. “I have always held the view that those in media should endeavour to write correct English grammar or else get out of the newsroom!” reader Kimathi Mwirichia, a regular critic of the Nation, told me in his message of March 20.
David Gitau, one of the many other readers who have complained, says: “On a daily basis we are assaulted by bad grammar, poor construction of sentences, and shocking syntax. There are many typing errors and even spelling mistakes in these days of spell-checking software.”
While we should see errors in perspective, accuracy matters, and the NMG has an ethical responsibility to avoid making errors, both grammatical and factual. Errors, big and small, should be corrected promptly, especially if they are factual. Dear reader, please help us to prevent errors by reporting those that you detect.
I cannot think of anything more important than avoiding errors, and acknowledging and correcting them when they are made.
Send your concerns or comments to [email protected]. You can also call or send text messages to mobile 072198926, call 3288000, or visit the Public Editor at Nation Centre in Nairobi.
