Just the facts, please

It doesn't matter how great the writing is if your facts are incorrect. I tell my students to check the following facts every time they edit a story:
• spelling of names of people, places and institutions;
• dates and details about historic occurrences;
• street addresses, e-mail addresses and Web site addresses;
• phone numbers;
• statistics and years, including doing the math when possible;
• anything that might be libelous (defamatory statements);
• anything that looks fishy.

I've been thinking about fact-checking for a while, but today seemed like a great day to tackle the subject. The World Series began last night, and the local paper, the Greeley Tribune, made Game 1 the lead story on the front page. The layout was excellent, with a four-column photo of Matt Holliday reacting after striking out and a smaller shot of Dustin Pedroia smacking a home run in his first Series at-bat. The layout looked really nice, but the copy contained the following error.

"Red Sox leadoff hitter Dustin Pedroia hit the second pitch he saw over the Green Monster."

No, he did not. Anyone who saw the game could tell you that Pedroia's homer hit the very top of the wall in left field, which is known as the "Green Monster," and fell back into the field of play. Because the ball hit the very top of the the wall, it was ruled a home run correctly by the umpire.

Someone from the sports desk should have caught that mistake. When I worked on the sports desk at the Connecticut Post, whenever a sports story ran on the front page of the paper, a sports copy editor was asked to read it to make sure things like this did not happen. The Tribune might want to start this practice.

One last thing about fact-checking. Students sometimes complain that a factual error results in an automatic F. I tell them it's better than losing your job. I was in the newsroom the night a reporter made a factual error in the score of a baseball game. I was also in the newsroom the next day, when he was fired for his error. Yes, it's that important.

Because facts are so significant in news, I'm going to discuss this issue again in my next post. Stay tuned.