<p>On one hand, I feel really honoured to have been chosen to be interviewed when the local paper asked my high school for a senior they wanted to highlight. </p>
<p>On the other hand, there are a handful of errors which I’m cringing at, which include errors about my plans and views for my desired major(s), and my take on issues about cultural and educational differences between my two home countries. </p>
<p>Now, they are rather major to me, because they almost seem to represent someone I am not. [I am not opposed to being conscripted into my birth country’s – just the way my birth country happens to waste massive amounts of manpower doing nothing in peacetime!] But on the other hand, the errors are too minor to actually call to the paper and complain about an article I was very lucky to have.</p>
<p>I’m sure many in this forum must have dealt with something like this at one point. And it is true that frequent errors in journalism is not a particularly unknown thing. Yet however…</p>
<p>I used to be interviewed quite a bit (when I was doing foster care, I was heavily involved in legislative issues) and was seldom quoted accurately. Sometimes words were put in my mouth (reporter would ask question, and if I answered yes, the reporters question became my statement, and if I said no, the reporter reworded it for the negative.) Statements were chosen sometimes strictly because they were inflammatory, or in some way “sold papers.” Once I wrote an op ed piece that was published heavily edited, so that my balanced (IMHO) piece became very one-sided. I had to deal with a couple week’s worth of nasty letters to the editor criticizing me for things I never said!</p>
<p>It was hard for me to handle at first. But my goal was to publicize foster care, and that was happening. And I realized that I cared much more about ME than anyone else did, and most people were not interested in the subject matter to begin with, let alone the corrections.</p>
<p>If someone comments on it to you, you can make the correction in person. Otherwise, assume that no one cares, because they probably don’t. (Don’t mean that to sound harsh - it’s just the reality.)</p>
<p>You have just learned a most valuable lesson that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Whenever you go on record the press can and does make major and minor mistakes all the time. When ever you read a story now it will help you to remember what is writen may not be accurate.</p>
<p>I once wrote to the paper about something that really bothered me and spent hours getting it just right. They published my letter word for word but italicized it so that it read and meant something completely different.</p>
<p>Just be happy that it wasn’t something of even greater importance.</p>
<p>Nothing. Anything you write will, as binx noted, probably be heavily edited and misleading anyway were it published. Then you’d have to reply again, edited again, etc. “Methinks he doth protest too much.” - William Shakespeare</p>
<p>If you feel the errors were major, you write a gracious, brief letter to the editor that thanks the paper for the story interview, and also corrects any errors. </p>
<p>Most reputable newspapers go out of their way to correct any errors, so don’t feel that you should just accept errors that were in a story about you.</p>
<p>That being said, my sons and I hate being inteviewed because every time we have been interviewed, there has been some kind of error in the story. </p>
<p>That’s why when I taught reporting in college, I gave automatic “Fs” when students turned in stories that had any errors. Students thought that I was unfair – until they saw people fired in the business due to errors.</p>
<p>I also know someone who literally lost their newspaper because one of their reporters mistakenly substituted the name of the arresting officer for the name of a person charged with a crime. The officer successfully sued for libel and won a very large settlement that bankruped the paper.</p>
<p>I second all of the comments to the effect that “nothing” is what you do about minor errors. (Northstarmom’s comment is useful for major errors of fact, as she noted.)</p>
<p>The first few times this happens to you, you’re likely to find it annoying. Twenty years from now, when you’re being interviewed for the nth time, you’ll probably view minor errors as par for the course. </p>
<p>It’s actually quite hard for a reporter to capture a nuanced position concisely and interestingly to readers who have little background information–if you start to write scholarly articles, and then see how your arguments/results are summarized by people in a related, but not identical field of specialization, you’ll understand the reporter’s difficulties even better.</p>
<p>Just write a polite letter to the editor. Reference the article, say how honored your were that they chose to write about you, but that you would like to clarify some points that were unclear/misreported. Then simply state the facts, “Although the article stated that I would be majoring in computers, I am actually planning to major in physics.” </p>
<p>Or you can call the paper, they usually print “errata” (ok, I probably spelled that wrong) correcting mistakes in earlier papers. Unfortunately no one reads the corrections, but it would make you feel better.</p>
<p>I really hate being misquoted, and I see no harm in politely calling people’s attention to it. It’s important to be able to believe/trust what we read in a newspaper, and if no one bothers to correct the reporter they’ll never improve and learn to be accurate.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s (unfortunately) almost to be expected that something will go wrong when you get in the paper. I have been misquoted in ways that make me cringe. I have also had letters to the editor edited in unsatisfactory ways. It irks me, because I painstakingly word things so that I use as few words as possible - well under the limit - in order to avoid editing by the paper’s staff. Once the editing resulted in a wording that made it seem I was misrepresenting my professional experience. I was not happy. How did I handle it? Only a couple people asked me about it, and when they did, I simply said, “The paper edited my words. I did not work as a so-and-so.” It’s vexing, but just shrug it off.</p>
<p>Over the years I have been interviewed a number of times by the press… sometimes they were writing about me personally and others they were writing about an organization I was involved with. Every single time the article came out there were at least several mistakes where they either mixed up some facts or just printed something that wasn’t correct. It was nothing major, but there were inaccuracies. </p>
<p>Initially I too was annoyed, but then you come to the realization that this sort of thing must happen with just about everything that gets reported. Once the press writes about you a few times you really look at everything else they write with a skeptical eye. </p>
<p>If there’s a major factual error (especially if they misquoted you in a way that makes you look bad) then you can ask for a correction, but if it’s just minor stuff then unfortunately that’s just the way it is.</p>
<p>D was intervewed by a local paper - she was pestered long enough to give in. When the article was published, her name was misspelled. She wrote a polite letter to the journalist, and the next day the on-line version of the article had the correct name. There were some other minor facts that she did not bother to point out to the writer because she thought they were insignificant.
Our local paper usually does not publish “errata” if there was a time gap between the publication of the article and the discovery of factual errors, but the online content will get corrected even many days after its first release.</p>