Correction is a continuous process

Technical checks and balances need to be supplemented with critical human intervention to avoid lapses.

August 08, 2016 01:15 am | Updated November 10, 2021 12:34 pm IST

One of the rewards of interacting with readers is learning something new about one’s own work. Earlier this week, an investment banker called to share his views about the column, “ >Time to take stock” (August 1, 2016) , and came up with his own set of classifications. For him, the daily corrections and clarifications were like day investing, and the weekly column was akin to Warren Buffett’s idea of investing for the long haul. He said the wider canvas created by the weekly column puts the daily corrections and clarifications in perspective, and hoped that the editorial team absorbed the spirit behind this self-correcting mechanism.

He was upset with the headline, “‘Bawariyas never spare young women’” (August 4, 2016), and wondered whether the role of the Readers’ Editor means anything to the headline writers. His arguments were that the headline did not distance itself from the obnoxious classification of the colonial era which our law-enforcing agencies still peddle; that the story, which was sensitive and looked at the issue with a critical eye, was lost because of the headline that went against the story; and that the quotation marks used in the headline did not take away the insensitivity of the headline. Another reader from Bengaluru, Anbazhagan S.V., was equally offended by the headline. He said: “It is a quote, no doubt, but one need not be a mouthpiece for him (the person quoted).” Sweeping generalisations, which criminalise an entire community or tribe, are certainly not a good idea. The headline slip-up hurts more because this newspaper has been consistent for decades in covering the stigma and social ostracisation that de-notified communities face, both in its reportage and comment pages.

The stock picture syndrome There was a good report titled, >“Adarsh stations don’t justify billing: CAG” (August 1, 2016) , based on an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) that found defects in the enhanced passenger facilities at almost 80 per cent of Adarsh railway stations. Some readers took exception to the illustrative photograph used for this report. They pointed out that the file picture that was used showed the Tambaram Sanatorium station, which is not one of the 968 Adarsh stations. The CAG audited 78 of the 968 Adarsh stations till March 2015 and found deficiencies in passenger facilities in 61 of them. The readers wanted to know what prevented the team of photographers at The Hindu from taking photos of any of the 61 stations where there were obvious deficits. What was the need, they wondered, to publish a photograph of a station which is not a designated Adarsh station?

The response from the desk for using a generic picture was: “It was just a representative picture used to illustrate facilities in railway stations. We never said it was an Adarsh station, either in the copy or in the caption.” My earlier column, > “Getting the picture right” (September 15, 2014) looked at the use of generic photographs. I recollected the >attempt of Chris Elliot, the then Readers’ Editor of The Guardian , to address a peeved reader whose question was: “How many stories can be illustrated by the same picture?”

Jeff Sonderman, in his Poynter article, “Use of generic photos can be dangerous for illustrating news stories”, has explored this theme by interviewing various editors who have used generic pictures, none of whom were very happy using them. For instance, KMIZ News Director Curtis Varns, said: “The stock image issue is a concern we do think about. We’re not happy with it… The images are used when we’re not able to provide specific story-related photos. During that time, I have fielded questions from a few readers about this topic. I quickly realised the way the photos were displayed was not ideal but the most we've been able to do as an organisation is try to minimise their usage.” This leads to a different set of questions. Do we need to illustrate every news story with a photograph? If a photograph is not available for a specific story, what prevents page editors from using an illustration or an infographic for visual relief?

Need for more human vigilance All the three Readers’ Editors of this newspaper commented on the problem of repetition of stories. My three columns on this vexatious issue were: >“The Sisyphean burden”, (November 3, 2014) , >“When coordination fails” (December 23, 2013) and >“Self-regulation works” (April 28, 2014) . I had mentioned an internal memo by the editor to put an end to this practice, given the fact that space is at a premium in a newspaper. After a gap of two years since a repetition in this publication, a story from The New York Times was carried twice recently under different headlines. On July 31, in the ‘Life’ section of some editions, the article was headlined “Communicating globally may require adapting to many differences”. The next day, in all editions, the business page carried the same piece under the headline, “How to deal with a fellow worker who can’t say ‘No’”.

My inquiry revealed an interesting story. On July 31, most of the editions had an advertisement of varying sizes on the last page and only some editions such as the Mumbai one had the space to accommodate the story, which was a feed from the newspaper’s syndication with The New York Times . The next day, there was one more feed with a different headline and the business editorial team decided to use it in their pages. The internal system of checks and balances helps to spot a story repetition when the headlines are the same, but there is no method to locate a story that has a different headline. This is one more reminder that technical checks and balances need to be supplemented with critical human intervention to avoid these types of lapses.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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