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MONDAY February 23, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels January 10, 2004 From the Editor's Desk By Andrew Scot Bolsinger Tidings Editor When I was hired to lead the Ashland Daily Tidings in June, I had three immediate goals that I wanted our staff to tackle by the end of the year. Two out of three isn't bad I guess, but the third was the most important, and the hardest to accomplish, of all. First, we wanted to upgrade and modernize the design. This was launched on Nov. 13, to the praise of many, and the fervent consternation of others. Mission accomplished, for better or worse. Second, we wanted to upgrade the staff. This meant hiring some new people and reassigning others. Recruitment, training and a steep learning curve awaited the new folks, even myself. Change, disruption and adjustment were the constant friends of those who remained. Now, for the first time in my short tenure (with the exception of a couple of weeks in the fall), we will have a complete staff in place and doing the jobs they were hired to do. That it took six months explains how complicated it is when you are dealing with people, their careers, their goals and their lives. But it's done, and frankly, pretty exciting. Our new staff will hold its first yearly planning retreat on Jan. 24. The vigor and enthusiasm, not to mention expertise, professionalism and experience of the combined staff is excellent for a paper this size. I can't wait to see what this group will accomplish as it comes together. Finally, we are just now getting started on my third task: reducing the number of errors in the newspaper. As I said, the toughest task of all is the last one. While we made minor changes, the full implementation of quality control is now priority No. 1 for 2004. What's involved? When people call to complain about typos, grammatical errors, or misinformation, they typically are hostile. These complaints are most always the most virulent of any I receive. Usually the conversation is shrouded in a air of superiority. The underlying tone is often something akin to, "are you a complete idiot?" It's why these complaints are the toughest to field. They are a direct attack on me, my staff and our ability to do our job. Rarely do those complaining have any idea of what's involved in putting out a daily paper, on deadline, every single day. They just know they have typed a term paper or a letter and they proofread it and caught the mistakes. Why can't we do the same, they wonder? What they don't know is that we deal in thousands of words, with multiple people involved, all with the constant pressure of the deadline looming. It's not an excuse, just a reality that reducing errors in the paper is a complicated and time-consuming process of evaluation, implementation and reevaluation. Before I launch into what we are going to do, let me give a little background. The New York Times runs more than 1,000 corrections each year. The Chicago Sun Times set a standard for tracking and correcting errors that has resulted in a 10-year project. The paper averaged several errors per page at the outset of its study. At the Tidings, we haven't done as good a job as we want with errors, typos and misspellings. With a small staff and a tight deadline, these are the first type of mistakes to slip through, just like the embarrassing misspelling of January on our masthead earlier this week. Red faced, we all wondered how it could happen. But it's pretty easily really. The masthead is something you look at everyday and it gets easier to let your eyes scan past the familiar information more quickly when in a hurry. Thus a simple typing mistake, made the day before when the page template was set up, slid by us and into newsstands. Creating checklists for proofreading, training people to discipline their eyes to take a second look at the obvious and setting up deadlines that allow for proper proofreading are just a few of the many, many procedures we need to develop to achieve greater consistency. What's next? It's a huge task, but an extremely important one. It begins on Jan. 24 at our staff retreat where we will assign specific tasks to everyone in the newsroom to help us improve our track record. Then in February we will conduct an error audit of all news copy in the paper, tracking the errors and assessing how they occurred. We plan on publishing these results in an editor's desk after it's completed. I know and expect that our readers will hold us accountable. March will bring the implementation of proofreading and editing policies for both reporters and editors that directly address the bulk of errors discovered in the audit. Sometime in the summer we will conduct a second audit. The obvious goal is a significant, tangible reduction of errors. One final note: While the Tidings receives its share of criticism about typographical errors, we actually have a very strong record in the corrections-of-fact department. Compared to other papers, our number of corrections are relatively few. Of course, right now, we can't back that up with specific data. In March, and from there on out, we will be able to do just that. At the Tidings, we strive to correct every error of fact that makes its way into the paper. When you see something that's wrong, send us an e-mail so we can get it corrected. 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