Eight newspapers in southern Brazil are working towards creating a more effective fact checking and copy editing process. The effort is name the Error Prevention Packet. The packet, composed of work by American and Brazilian professionals, contains helpful information for journalists to use when writing stories.
Basic highlights of the projects includes a database collection of errors between the eight newspapers, a checklist of the five most common copy and editing errors, and a manual focusing on individual division sections. If you read the article, it contains more specific and detailed information.
Why haven't American newspaper implemented a program such as this? Not only are corrections entered into a database, but it helps to trace patterns of mistakes. With the American public criticizing the reporting of journalists, maybe they'd feel more comfortable if newspapers had a systematic procedure to check facts, names, etc. I admire the Brazilian effort to deliver accurate information. Most journalists take the intiative to make sure everything's accurate but not all of them do, and Americans know this. If the public knew journalists followed an outline to check accuracy, there wouldn't be such a distrust of news.
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