What a Corrections Policy Should Actually Say

Ask most small outlets whether they have a corrections policy and the answer is usually yes, technically. Somewhere there's a line about fixing mistakes when they happen. Ask what that line actually instructs a reporter to do at 11pm when a source calls with a complaint, and the answer gets a lot quieter.

A policy that reassures readers is easy to write: a sentence saying the outlet values accuracy, another saying corrections will be made promptly. Neither tells anyone in the newsroom what to do. A policy that gets used has to answer three practical questions, in order, before it says anything about tone.

Who decides, and how fast

The first gap we usually find is ownership. If any reporter can quietly edit a published piece without telling anyone, the outlet has no record of what changed or why. If every correction has to wait for an editor who might be offline for a day, small errors sit uncorrected far longer than they should. The fix is naming, in the policy itself, exactly who can approve which kind of change and how quickly they're expected to respond.

This doesn't need to be complicated. A named backup approver, plus a same-day expectation for factual errors, solves most of the delay we see in practice.

What gets logged, and what gets flagged to readers

Not every fix needs a public note — a typo doesn't require an editor's note, but a wrong date or a misattributed quote does. A workable policy sets that line clearly, so reporters aren't guessing case by case:

• Spelling, formatting, and minor style fixes: corrected silently, no note needed
• Factual errors that change meaning: corrected with a visible note and timestamp
• Anonymous-sourcing disputes: escalated to the named approver before any public statement

Writing this down once, and testing it against a real example from the outlet's own recent coverage, tends to surface disagreements that would otherwise only come up during an actual crisis — which is the worst time to be figuring out who's in charge.