Reviews
Correction and update policies at major US news outlets compared
Daily news explainers compare how the AP, the New York Times, NPR and Reuters write corrections, clarifications, updates and retractions for readers.
What to take away
- All four outlets use correction for a factual error. After that, their label sets diverge.
- The New York Times carries the widest setcorrection, clarification, editor's note, update and withdrawal.
- The Associated Press and Reuters sell copy to other newsrooms, so a correction travels back down the wire to clients that never wrote the original line.
- NPR ties a correction to the platform that carried the error, because a spoken mistake cannot be unspoken.
- Updates are the least governed label at all four. A refreshed story carries no admission of error.
What the four policies share
A correction fixes a published fact. A clarification adds context to copy that was accurate but easy to misread. All four newsrooms draw that first line the same way.
Each runs a corrections desk and publishes what it decides. The AP and Reuters push corrections to clients. The Times and NPR post them where the original audience will look.
No shared standard governs the labels themselves. A reader who needs to know whether a change was an error has to read the note, not the word above it. Learning that habit is the point of a daily news explainer.
Comparing the label sets, outlet by outlet
The table below summarizes published policy and standing practice at each outlet. Thresholds still shift between desks and between editors.
Comparing the label sets
Correction
- Associated Press
- Fixes a factual error; sent back through the wire to every client
- New York Times
- Factual error; runs in the section where it appeared, print and online
- NPR
- Factual error; posted online and, when material, read on air
- Reuters
- Factual error; corrected version issued down the same feed
Clarification
- Associated Press
- Copy was accurate but open to being misunderstood
- New York Times
- Adds context where the original could mislead
- NPR
- Missing or misleading context
- Reuters
- Accurate but potentially misleading copy
Editor's note
- Associated Press
- Not a routine label
- New York Times
- Broader failure: standards, sourcing, substantial rework
- NPR
- Standards issues; used less often than at the Times
- Reuters
- Not a routine label
Update
- Associated Press
- Developing story refreshed; no error label
- New York Times
- Live and developing coverage, labeled as updates
- NPR
- Dated line noting added information
- Reuters
- Market and breaking stories refreshed continuously
Retraction
- Associated Press
- Story or claim pulled, with an explanation
- New York Times
- Claim withdrawn; the original is usually annotated
- NPR
- Claim withdrawn on the platform that carried it
- Reuters
- Formal withdrawal when a story is pulled
How Four Outlets Label Changes
Associated Press
- Update
- No error implied
- Clarification
- Open to misunderstanding
- Correction
- Sent back through wire
- Editor's note
- Used sparingly
- Retraction
- Rare withdrawal
New York Times
- Update
- No error implied
- Clarification
- Context added
- Correction
- Run in same section
- Editor's note
- Standards or sourcing
- Retraction
- Withdrawn or reworked
NPR
- Update
- Dated line added
- Clarification
- Context missing
- Correction
- On air and online
- Editor's note
- Occasionally
- Retraction
- Withdrawn
Reuters
- Update
- Continuous refresh
- Clarification
- Potentially misleading
- Correction
- Flagged to subscribers
- Editor's note
- Not standard
- Retraction
- Formal withdrawal
Two patterns stand out. Everyone agrees on what a correction is for. Nobody agrees where a clarification ends and an editor's note begins.
Readers often mistake a refreshed story for a corrected one. Breaking update types compared sets out each format and what it promises.
What drives the differences between newsrooms
A wire service cannot fix a mistake in one place. The AP writes for member outlets that may already have published its copy, so a correction has to reach all of them. Reuters sells to terminals and newsrooms worldwide, so its wording must survive republication.
Legal exposure shapes the rest. Defamation claims turn on whether a publisher corrected promptly and visibly. The FTC statutes that give the Federal Trade Commission its power over deceptive claims set the wider backdrop, though the agency does not police news copy.
A newspaper owns its archive and can annotate it. The Times uses editor's notes for broader failures, such as a sourcing problem or substantial reworking. Neither wire service treats that as routine.
Broadcast adds a platform problem. An audio error cannot be corrected in place, so NPR must decide whether the fix runs on air, online or both.
If a change would alter what a reader took from the story, it is not an update. That test settles most labeling arguments.
How a reader should judge a correction
Four checks do most of the work. Read the label, find the date, confirm the original is still reachable, and check that the fix reached the audience that saw the error.
Judging a Correction
- Is the change labeled, not silently applied?
- Does the label carry a date and time?
- Does the note say what was wrong?
- Is the original still reachable?
- Did the fix reach the original platform?
- Is the change labeled as a correction, clarification, editor's note or retraction?
- Does the label carry a date and, where relevant, a time?
- Does the note say what was wrong, not just that something changed?
- Is the original story still reachable in some form?
- Did the correction reach the platform where the error appeared?
Deletion is the clearest warning sign. A newsroom that removes a story destroys the evidence. The Times and NPR generally annotate, while the AP and Reuters push a corrected version and leave the original in client archives.
Wire clients fail more often than the wires do. A local paper that runs a corrected AP line without the note leaves readers with two versions and no explanation. Member stations create the same gap for NPR, one of the recurring daily news explainer problems that a written policy should close.
Errata as the model for data corrections
Statistical agencies face a harder version of the same problem. When a jobs figure is revised, the original release is already public and already quoted.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes errata instead. The BLS errata page lists each correction with the affected series and the corrected values, and the original release stays archived. A scheduled revision is not an error; an errata entry is.
The distinction transfers. A desk updating a developing story is revising. A desk fixing a wrong figure is filing errata. The BLS frequently asked questions describe how the agency keeps the two apart.
Wording matters as much as the act, and Government decisions and public services covers how readers trace a public ruling back to the record behind it.
