Error message: Creation of a revised codebook for analysis of newspaper corrections

Abstract

The codebook for analyzing newspaper corrections has remained nearly unchanged since 1936. This project sought to create and validate a new codebook. Study 1 analyzed a previous application of the original codebook and proposed a new version, which Study 2 and Study 3 then applied and tested. In both, the new codebook resulted in fewer underused categories and fewer uncategorized corrections. This study, therefore, recommends its new codebook for future analytical studies of newspaper corrections.

Numbers in News Articles: Effects of Presence, Errors, and (False) Recall

“…Nemeth and Sanders (2009) analyzed samples of corrections in The New York Times and the Washington Post , and about 10% were attributed to numbers (i.e., numbers were the source of 12.5% and 11% of the corrections from 1997; 10.5% and 8.7% from 2007) (Nemeth & Sanders, 2009, Table 1, p. 95). Appelman and Hettinga (2019) similarly found that numbers were the source of 13% of corrections in a sample from The New York Times , the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , and the Los Angeles Times from 2010 to 2014 (Appelman & Hettinga, 2019, Table 1, p. 32). Martin and Martins (2018) analyzed corrections in five newspapers— Toronto Star , News & Observer (NC), Winston-Salem Journal (NC), Hartford Courant (CT), and Daily Press (VA)—in the year before and after outsourcing their copy editing (dates ranged from 2009 to 2014); they found that 19.1% addressed “errors in quantification” the year before, compared to 16% the year after (Martin & Martins, 2018, Table 1, p. 11).…”

Comparing and contrasting corrected errors at four newspapers

“…Does article content or audience affect the impact of corrected errors? This study tests a new codebook created by Appelman and Hettinga 12 and provides a snapshot of corrections in textual news media by exploring similarities and differences in those corrected errors.…”