The Corrections Page: Why Good Outlets Admit Mistakes

Every news outlet makes mistakes. The difference between a trustworthy publication and an unreliable one is not the error rate. It is what happens after the error: whether it is acknowledged, fixed visibly, and recorded where readers can find it. A news corrections policy is the set of rules a publication follows when it gets something wrong. It answers three questions: who decides a correction is needed, how prominently the fix is displayed, and whether the original mistake stays visible or quietly disappears. Readers who want to judge a source can learn more from that policy than from any slogan about integrity on the About page. This explainer explains how corrections work, why the practice signals quality rather than weakness, and how to read a corrections page the way an analyst reads a data release — including the revisions.

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