by Rachel Smith
23 September 2015
I recently did a travel story with a tour company who comped my trip and promised to reimburse my flights when the story ran (with a mention). Stupidly I got their website URL wrong in the story (which appeared in a monthly mag) and they’re now refusing to pay for my flights. I’m cranky because I thought the subs would’ve fact-checked the URL and I’m now massively out of pocket. Do I have any kind of leg to stand on? J
If it was an online error it could be rectified easily, of course, but in a print mag, it’s a face-palm situation and not a mistake you’ll ever make again. And don’t blame the subbing department; there might not be one! Surely you’ve heard of how tough sub-editors are doing it right now in our industry and how many media companies are either reducing subbing departments or slashing them altogether and sending subbing offshore to cut costs.
With that in mind, I think the onus is more than ever on us as journalists to ensure accuracy in copy. It’s just slack to send through stuff that might be inaccurate and hope subs would pick it up anyway – and it sure won’t help your reputation (or get you hired again). How to make sure everything you file is error-free? Use a journalist checklist – a tool award-winning US journo Craig Silverman swears by. Silverman (whose checklist is left) founded the blog Regret The Error (now on Poynter) and reports on trends to do with media accuracy. He’s big on the checklist as an error prevention system, especially for veteran journos who may instead rely on ‘experience’ – reportedly one of the most common sources of media mistakes.
I definitely run my copy through a basic last minute check-list before filing it, although I have nothing sticky-taped to the wall per se – it’s just a vague list of things I check that are in my head, after years of writing the same types of stories and interviewing the same types of experts. However, a list taped to the wall might actually be a better option, helping you really slow down and assess what you’re handing in. I know that the times I’ve rushed copy through, I’ve made mistakes I’ve kicked myself for later. And trust me, there’s nothing like that sick feeling you get from an editor returning your copy and telling you that you got a stat or a fact wrong.
Do you use a checklist before filing copy? What essential checks specific to your work / your beat would you add to Craig Silverman’s list?
As a sub and a journo I’m a stickler for checklists. Yes, I could probably still work well without one, but if you want to be absolutely sure you aren’t missing anything (and it’s part of our job to be absolutely sure!), then it’s safer to use a checklist.
By the same token, a great teacher of mine once drummed into us that a journalist should always be triple checking their work before submission. It’s our reputation on the line with our work and you make a great point, Rachel, it won’t help you get hired again if you are delivering subpar work hoping that someone else will fix it. I made this point to a dep ed friend of mine recently and she joked that we would be out of a job if the journalist did their job too well. I disagree with that. An editor and sub-editor’s job is much more than ‘fixing’ and fact-checking.
Sure, we’re there to catch incidentals and errors but the best way you can help your best work make it to the published page is by submitting your best work in the first place. Think of a sub as your safety net, and as with a real safety net, you should be hoping that you don’t need to use it.
In your reader’s circumstance, accidents do happen and we’re all only human after all! There could be any number of things that went wrong anywhere along the line. But, yes, subs should be checking all the facts.
Great checklist example, Rachel. Thanks for sharing.
Pleasure, Leigh! It’s going on my wall for sure 🙂
Love your point about the sub as a safety net… but I feel for subs these days; I reckon they’re under the pump more than ever so giving in our best is really helping them out. For me that means also writing heads, sells, potential pull-quotes (if necessary / the mag uses them) and a section on stats/facts with links and all expert contact details. That’s probably a whole other post though…
I absolutely agree with submitting stats/facts with links and expert contact details. That should be standard I think. Everything else is a helpful bonus that will make a journalist stand out from the pack and massively increase their chances of being rehired.
As a freelance sub, it’s good to hear your supportive comments, Rachel. Copy filed by writers who provide all the add-ons you mention often seems less prone to errors, perhaps because of the attention to detail. It can also be a lifesaver when up against a tight deadline.
I think it’s leftover from my subbing days, Kerrie – I remember being so baffled subbing in England where people would submit copy without even a head on it or a sell… it was a given that ‘the subs did that’. But if you wrote the story surely suggesting a head/sell is just finishing it off properly?! Well, that’s how I feel anyway.
Has anyone ever had subs or editors insert mistakes? It has been happening to me more and more in recent times. I pride myself in delivering clean copy, then when I read the printed version I spot several mistakes. At first I used to think I made them and didn’t see them but then I started checking my submitted version against the published version and found they were being inserted after my last touch. So frustrating when that’s what ends up in my portfolio.
Or a typo has snuck through in the intro and you *KNOW* there was no typo in the copy you filed. I was a sub for years and sure, mistakes happen but when a typo makes it through to the hard copy, and it’s your story… arghhhhh 🙂
Problems can arise if there is a time lag from when you handed over your piece with information based on what was accurate then and if the information then changes before the piece is published. I’ve just had a situation where the information on the internet that I relied on was changed or vanished. From that experience I’d be inclined to be more general. I was grateful but mortified when the sub queried it.