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System, selection and scope for slips

For an outside observer, it should not matter when mistakes occur in the newspaper every day, even though it falls to his lot to publish corrections for them. When I was actively involved in the production of The Hindu and Frontline, errors in them affected me deeply, personally, even when I was not directly responsible — for finally the buck stopped at my table, and I had to answer the Editor. Today I can just look on, amusedly, at the silly and not-so-silly mistakes that crop up. But no. The same sense of pain, ingrained over decades, creeps in. The corrections part of my job is the most distressing of all; it almost amounts to flagellation.

That being the case, what is the reaction when you publish a correction, setting right certain errors, and the same errors (some of them) reappear in the correction, causing snide remarks from readers? All you can do is to republish it, trying to offer some explanation of what remains a riddle, in the hope that the issue is laid to rest. That is not to be.

Let me begin at the beginning. The Op-Ed page of August 13, 2008 carried an article by Hasan Suroor: “Here is the ‘sunny’ side of economic crunch”. There was one paragraph on a British academic’s suggestion to adopt “variant” spellings as a solution for common misspellings of some words — the examples provided were “thier” for their, “arguement” for argument, “speach” for speech, and so on. The article as printed had normal spellings where there should have been variants.

Hasan was the first to point out the “howlers” and quite a few readers joined the chorus. It was decided to publish a correction. And horror of horrors (to borrow Hasan’s phrase in the article), in the correction that appeared, some (luckily not all) variants were replaced by normal spellings.

That set me on an exploratory mission. No one could me tell how and at what stage the original article underwent the wrong changes. My immediate concern was the correction. The editorial team in charge of the page told me that it never makes any changes in the corrections column without consulting me. And when the reference is to “variant” spellings, no one would think of altering it. The pagination department assured me it did the typeset without disturbing the content. So we reran the correction, with an explanation that my enquiries did not unravel the cause of the error, and it needed further investigation.

An ex-colleague helpfully suggested that if the auto correction facility was not switched off, the variant spellings would be automatically corrected. At the post-editing stage, when those who process the page save it, the auto correction facility could have been on on that machine.

The desk agreed that the auto correction facility exists and it does correct wrong spellings of common words. But that could not have been responsible for what happened, for only two of the incorrect spellings were changed, leaving the rest as they were, in the correction. They did not know “where things go out of the desk’s control.” The technical team’s response was that when the auto correction changes a spelling, if the wrong spelling is retyped, that stays. The first three laser prints of the text had the “variant” spellings and only in the fourth print were the changes found. So how and when did the alterations occur, and why were these not noticed when the final print was passed? There it rests.

My brief explanation in the second correction published did not satisfy a reader — he shall remain nameless — who went on a tirade. The editorial desk’s admission that it was aware of the mistake and did not do anything about it (they said no such thing) was “the height of stupidity or irresponsibility.” And I was “equally guilty of dereliction of duty.” There was a systems error and “you always pass on the buck to the disappearance of the proof-reader breed.” (When did I do that?) He is “shocked” that “The Hindu team, including you and the so-called technical side” is not aware of the feature of autocorrect and how it functions! And he offered advice on how to use this and other facilities.

The reader says he is collecting spelling and grammatical errors in The Hindu “which is beyond correction.” He blames me for not acknowledging them. It is a fact that I do not take up such mistakes for correction in my daily column, which includes only substantive omissions or commissions.

The process of corrections necessarily involves some selection. Typographical errors are common in all newspapers. Errors of syntax also creep in occasionally. The space for corrections is limited; it cannot include routine ones nor can it become a grammar lesson. Many such errors find a place in my fortnightly column. From the messages we receive daily, those that raise questions of fact or incomprehension are selected to be clarified. The draft of the corrections, as prepared by the Readers’ Editor’s office, is finalised by me in hard copy form. The Assistant Readers’ Editor then formats it and transfers it, after “saving” it, from a basket called “Inbox” to another basket called “Ready Stories.” From here it is “dragged” and “dropped” in to the template of the “Corrections and Clarifications” column on the Op-Ed page. After necessary alignments the Assistant Readers’ Editor fixes the column on the page. At every stage the matter is checked and a proof is taken. A print is given to the editorial team and one kept on our files.

On the day the “variant” spelling mistakes appeared in the “Corrections and Clarifications” column, the Assistant Readers’ Editor was on leave, being unwell. I finalised the material for the column and passed on the hard copy, and an emailed version, to the Chief News Editor and the editorial page team. I cannot handle the subsequent technical steps myself, having got out of the groove when the innovations were being introduced.

Rather an elaborate account with details not easy to follow, but I hope that answers the critics who accuse us of systems failure. Some may still find some loopholes. But with all the care and caution, slips do occur. This was one of the occasions.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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