Meeting/Police: Fatalspalooza

This is the time of the semester fatals should be trending down. But what I'm seeing is that they're trending up. This is not good.

Keep in mind, this list contains fatals from TWO assignments, so it looks a lot longer than usual. Still, these are more fatals that we should be seeing by now. Many of them fall under the general lack-of-attention-to-detail category, but the first one is a huge fundamental concern.

A quick recap:

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PROBLEM: We quote DaRoza as saying, "I'm not injured."

SOLUTION: This is a big problem, because DaRoza never said that to us. Yes, he said in the police report that he was unhurt, but we CAN NEVER quote someone who hasn't spoken to us. Plus, we CANNOT make up wording that approximates what we know he said, and then put that approximation in quotes.

Quotes can ONLY be used to represent EXACTLY what was said to us, or to cite something from a document EXACTLY as-is, with proper attribution included.

By creating quote approximating what was said by a source in a document, and then attributing it not to the document but to the individual, we've created a non-existent quote and inferred we had a conversation we never had.

In journalism, this is considered making up stuff, and making up stuff is an unpardonable sin in the industry. Doing either of these things will almost certainly get you fired, and make your chances of ever getting rehired by anyone else in journalism. It's that serious.

Now, do I think you intended to make things up? Not at all, no. But intentions don't matter; this comes across as making up facts and scenarios. For us to make it in this business, we MUST know the difference, and never make a mistake.

Again, let's be clear: quotes can only contain exactly what was said. And attribution must be credited precisely to how we got the info. We can NEVER get these wrong, ever.  

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PROBLEM: We said the superintendent got a raise from $10,000 to $137,000, when in fact it was a raise of $10,000 (from $127,000) to $137,000.

SOLUTION: Take time to review material before we start writing to make sure we understand what we are about to write, and then after writing carefully review what we wrote to make sure what we wrote was what we intended to write and is, in fact, correct.

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PROBLEM: Inside of a quote we spelled too as to. Any misspelling within a quote is a fatal.

SOLUTION: After we finish writing, we compare every word of every quote in our story against what we have in our notes and/or the book, to make sure what we wrote was exactly what we intended to write.

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PROBLEM: We spelled the first name of Claire Sawyer as Clair, without the "e" at the end.

SOLUTION: You know this one: double-check all spellings of any noun (person, place or thing), statistical unit and quotes to make sure what you wrote is correct.

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PROBLEM: We identified Claire Sawyer as Chris Sawyer.

SOLUTION: Same as above.

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PROBLEM: We spelled the last name of Adler as Alder, with the L and D reversed. Two of us did this!

SOLUTION: You know this one. We just need to do it, every time, with no exceptions.

Plus, this is a situation where if we blindly clicked on every suggested change offered by spell check, we may have inserted an error into the story. That's because Adler isn't a word (it's just a name, which is something spell check generally doesn't recognize as a word); it would probably suggest we change it to Alder, which is a word (it's a noun meaning, a reddish type of wood from the genus Alnus).

If we weren't paying attention and just clicking on all recommended changes, then this may have happened to us. Given the rate of this mistake being made, I strongly suspect it happened at least once.

Just another reason why spell check is a supplement to, but not a substitute for, checking your work with your own eyes, line-by-line, noun-by-noun, number-by-number and and quote-by-quote. 


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PROBLEM: We spelled the last name of a school board member as Vacante and Vancate.

SOLUTION: Properly proofreadfing the story using your own eyes would have revealed two spellings for one name, for which at least one has to be wrong. That should have prompted us to then double-check what the correct spelling was in the text, and that would have indicated both spellings were wrong.

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PROBLEM: We spelled the name of the town as Grand Ledge and Grande Ledge.

SOLUTION: Same as above.

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PROBLEM: We say Okemos Police responded to the robbery. Although the robbery was in Okemos, the responding police agency was the Ingham County Sheriff's Department.

SOLUTION: Don't assume; make sure you understand all the facts as they are before we start writing. We need to be precise with names. Be sure to double-check the spellings of ALL names-- whether of people or businesses or pets or towns or whatever -- both before and after writing.

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PROBLEM: We referred to Terry DaRoza as a she. In the report, DaRoza is referred to as a he.

SOLUTION: Again, pay attention to details. Assume nothing and check everything.

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PROBLEM: We said the second suspect fled in a Toyota Celica. But the report said the car was towed.

SOLUTION: Same as above.

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PROBLEM: We said the robbery took place at 1:15 p.m. (the afternoon/midday), when in fact it was 1:15 a.m. (early morning/overnight hours).

SOLUTION: Again, same. Attention to detail, double-check everything.

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Learning to write isn't journalism. Learning to organize information isn't all of journalism. Putting in a system of checking facts before, during and after writing and organizing information is what makes this kind of writing and organizing known as journalism.

The good news is, many of my previous classes had fatals binges, especially early in the semester when we're still reconciling balancing speed and accuracy. The fact is, most people in previous classes get two or three or four fatals in practice stories over the course of the semester, and still end up with a solid grade.

The bad news is, some of us have already used up our three or so fatals. We have to buckle up and start avoiding 'em here and there.

Still, while this is discouraging, let's not get discouraged. The whole point of these exercises -- and getting fatals, too -- is to learn by doing, reviewing what was done, learning what could be done better, and then applying those lessons the next time.

And that's what we're going to do here, by redoubling our efforts to carefully fact-check everything we write.

In a previous blog post, I offered a number of cut-and-pasted handouts on good fact-checking habits. I'm not in the business of handing things out just to be busy; those handouts included many tips we should be integrating into our routines, so we can become relatively fatal-free. You can link directly to those handouts right here.

Let's not let these bad times go to waste. Rather, let's use these mistakes as an opportunity to identify where we tend to trip up and how we can do better the next time, and as motivation to follow through with rigorous fact-checking from here on out.