Stories that are published in the newspaper and a correction comes to light:

The Oregonian should append published corrections to the original article online in addition to posting daily corrections on the Special Coverage page.

Therese Bottomly has created a new system for making sure editors or reporters 1) correct the mistake in the online version, 2) note that a correction is appended and 3) append the approved correction wording.

Each post with a correction will have:

At top of story, a tag that reads, “Correction appended” (bold-faced at beginning of body copy)

At end of story, a tag that reads, “This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:” followed by the correction.

Here is a correction example:

Correction: August 9, 2009
A review on July 26 about “Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and Its History,” by Rich Cohen, misidentified the region in which David Alroy, a 12th-century false messiah, lived. It was present-day Iraq, not Persia. (Alroy was born in what is now Kurdistan and studied in Baghdad, which was then ruled by the Seljuk Turks.)

Online only errors:

If an error is discovered in an online article, the reporter or editor should go in and fix the article.

If the error was pointed out by commenters, the reporter or editor must go into the comment stream, acknowledge the error and note the article has been modified.

In some cases, even if readers did not point out the error, we may want to fix the story online but also note at the bottom that the article has been corrected. Check with the Online team or Susan Gage if this seems the best route.

Legal concerns:

We have a legal responsibility for the information we post online. That means the same rules of libel apply. For that reason, if we are correcting legally sensitive information online, we should be more cautious in our handling of the error and any acknowledgment of the error. When in doubt, check with one of the managing editors.

When handling legally sensitive errors that came to our attention through the comments, a simple note that we have updated or modified the story is best. Legal standards such as recklessness, carelessness and the like come in to play so we would not want to characterize in any way our handling of the information. (“Whoops, typing too fast. Thanks!” and the like should be avoided.)

In some cases, our lawyers may advise removing an erroneous article or post altogether, ask that the correction be placed at the top of the article or specify some other way to handle a correction or retraction. For that reason, don’t change corrections posted on articles without checking with a managing editor.