Next Time They Err... They'll Pay.

Craig Silverman's blog/book Regret the Error is any editor or journalist's worst nightmare. Actually, large amounts of individuals pointing out mistakes would probably be any writer's ultimate embarrassment. Nobody claps their hands together with glee at being proven wrong, especially when it could be detrimental to your reputation (not to mention the company's that you work for).

Generally speaking, we can assume that there is no malicious intent behind a professional journalist's mistake, but that doesn't excuse from making them. Grammatical or factual, there are reasons why a journalist gets hired for a job, isn't there? There are reasons why they call themselves professionals in contrast to any lay-person who decides to blog news (for example). Everyone makes mistakes, yes, but journalists are not everyone. Or so they try so hard to make us believe and accept.

For some news companies, embarrassment is not enough to right the wrongs of their employees (or themselves). Take the Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, for example, who way back in 2002 started giving their journalists fines for making mistakes in their articles. The fines only covered spelling and other grammatical errors, but in adding a more personal consequence directly related to the journalist, one can imagine that it might make them less likely to err.

Is this really a viable solution? Probably not. Especially considering the speed in which information can be changed/corrected/amalgamated online, which is where our newspapers are headed anyway. But it certainly makes you wonder...