Airing The Dirty Laundry: Too Few Of NPR's Corrections Are Heard On The Radio
Making a mistake is a pit-in-the-stomach fear of most good reporters. But how a news organization approaches corrections is one of the defining factors separating trustworthy journalism from the media pack. No news organization is going to be error-free, particularly as news cycles get ever faster, so trustworthy news organizations correct mistakes quickly and they don't try to hide them. To the contrary, they make any needed corrections prominently, giving audiences confidence that, overall, the news outlet's reporting is solid.
NPR, I have found, acknowledges most errors in a timely manner. Editors take them seriously and it is easy for listeners and readers to bring them to the attention of the newsroom through a link on the NPR help page.
That said, the transparency with which NPR corrections are handled needs work.
