Corrections prove hard to find on newspaper Web sites

One of the principal ways newspapers avoid libel suits is by publishing a correction, or apology, of sorts in a subsequent issue. As newspaper readership has migrated from hard copies to online, finding the corrections section seems to have gotten much more difficult. A section that is almost always prominently featured in the "A" section of a newspaper is often buried in the online edition.

To start with, let's take the New York Times, one of the nation's largest newspapers. Upon typing "corrections" into the search box at the top of the page, the first result is indeed the daily corrections article. However, for the casual reader who is not specifically looking for what may have been misreported, the corrections section is not as prominent as it is in the hard copy of the newspaper. A link to the section appears about halfway down the home page on the left side in very small font.

In the AJC, corrections appear on page two of the newspaper's hard copy on a daily basis. On the newspaper's Web site, however, a link to the corrections section does not appear. Additionally, a link to the section is not available via any of the headings at the top of the page either. Only by typing "corrections" into the search box was I able to find corrections, and they did not appear to be in any particular order.

Corrections, once a crucial part of a newspaper saving its reputation, have taken a back seat as newspapers have gone online. Providing the public with 100 percent correct information should be the number one priority of a publication. Consequently, I believe corrections should appear on a daily basis on the front page of every publication's Web site, rather than taking an "out of site, out of mind" approach.