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Opinion

Public editor: Accuracy matters, and the DMN wants to get it right

Errors, inaccuracies hurt credibility. There’s a system to address them.

(DMN)

Ann D’Amico and husband Dennis devour The Dallas Morning News every day, wading through news stories, comics, the Opinion section. Ann spends up to 45 minutes with the paper; Dennis gives it at least an hour.

The retired advertising professionals and Dallas residents are longtime subscribers who years ago both majored in journalism. They know, as Dennis says, that “Reporting is a difficult job.” Yet the energetic, plainspoken couple have no patience for grammatical errors, typos and factual mistakes, including missing information.

Ann points to a story in late May about a homicide victim, part of a yearlong series that is chronicling the life of every person slain in Dallas in 2024. It was, she says, “lacking in facts, and that really bothered me.” Among her questions: Exactly where did the killing happen? If he died as a part of a shootout, as the story said, did the victim have a gun, too? Who else was shooting, and why?

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Based on my inbox, I’d say accuracy is one of the most important issues for readers. They are baffled when we get our facts wrong or leave out relevant material. To them, it all adds up to inaccuracy.

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“Grant Moise [publisher of The News] says that the paper strives to give the reader high-quality content that allows them to make informed decisions,” Ann says. “Well, you can only make informed decisions if you have facts.”

Like those who accuse us of deliberate bias, the angriest of those readers choose the worst narrative — that our journalists are indifferent to the truth, animated by a casual disdain for our audience. I don’t buy that. But they are right to see this as a challenge that strikes at the heart of our credibility.

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In late May, a Metro piece included both a misspelled name and an incorrect date. In other stories in recent weeks, we used “diffuse” when we meant “defuse,” “lay” when we should have used “lie,” and “alright” instead of “all right.” The headline on a front-page story last month incorrectly referred to mifepristone as an anti-abortion drug. Another Page 1A story in June contained a missing word and a grammatical error. Late last month, a headline said that Kevin Costner spent $100,000 on his latest film project. The correct figure: $100 million.

The News keeps a database of its errors. It includes mistakes by everyone from photojournalists to reporters to top editors. No one is exempt. From October 2022 to late May 2024, our staff compiled 471 errors. Our journalists churn out at least 2,400 pieces of content every month, and so judging by published corrections, it appears that they are accurate most of the time.

We also deserve credit for tracking and publishing corrections, as many media outlets do neither. Still, we are laboring to build, and rebuild, trust with readers, and mistakes make that task harder. This is not lost on Executive Editor Katrice Hardy.

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“We talk about it a lot,” Hardy says. “We want to really make sure that we’re accurate. We understand that we’re going to make mistakes; we’re human. But the point is that we make as few as possible.”

That means editors are asking reporters, “Where’d you get the information from? Is it a reliable source?” Hardy adds. “Are you checking, going over the names, the dates, even looking at the quotes that you’re using? Is there another place where you could check this information?”

On a typical day, Assistant Managing Editor for News Steve Bruss says, we publish 80 to 100 pieces of content on dallasnews.com. In this highly competitive media market, immediacy and accuracy often collide, and sometimes accuracy loses. Bruss says many errors are routine — misspelled names, mislabeled neighborhoods, misused words. He is not minimizing these mistakes. In fact, just the opposite: He points out that, over time, small errors still blunt readers’ trust.

For example, after spotting a grammatical mistake in the opening paragraph of a Metro story on July 2, Ann D’Amico thought, “ ‘This person doesn’t know what they’re talking about.’ That’s not fair, but it’s my first instinct.”

Our editors have taken a series of steps to improve accuracy. The corrections database is one. The news department is also tweaking processes to allow for more stories to be read by copy editors before they go up on our website. A couple of reporters teach a fact-checking course once a quarter. Newsroom leaders plan to bulk up the onboarding process for newcomers, with an emphasis on giving them more information about the area. And editors keep telling reporters to slow down.

The stakes could not be higher. In our Wild West media ecosystem, getting the facts right is one of the few advantages we hold over competitors. It is the quickest, most reliable way to distinguish ourselves from those who traffic in conspiracy theories, unfounded rumors and lies.

Accuracy is one way to perhaps win back readers who’ve abandoned mainstream media. And it is a sure path to keeping readers like the D’Amicos happy.

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com