Accuracy

To err is human, to spell check is divine. Admittedly this may not be the traditional form of this idiom, but I wish I had paid it some heed last week.
For reporters accuracy must be paramount, you can write the most interesting story in the world, but if the details are incorrect it will sweep the very foundations out from under it.
Last week battle lines were somewhat drawn up after I raised the hackles of our rival publication with one of my earlier entries regarding us scooping them on the website. Unfortunately there is nothing more self-indulgent and frankly boring than a petty dispute brought into the public domain, so I will extend the olive branch of peace here and now, but one very good point was raised by my nameless rival.
It may seem pedantic to some to focus on the fact that we spelt the word 'occasion' wrong in our coverage of a story, but this genuinely is a serious crime in journalism.
If a reporter cannot be accurate in the words he or she writes then how can they be trusted to be accurate in the facts they present to a reader?
News is often extremely sensitive for those involved and there have been several occasions (carefully spell checked) when I have been acting in an editorial capacity and people have rung me angry with a story.
Most common of these complaints is petty criminals, many of whom will be angry when their court case is covered for all the world to see. I firmly believe that if people do not want the world to know what they have been up to they shouldn't be breaking the law in the first place, and furthermore a trial is, generally, open to the public and therefore a matter of public record, which we have every right to report.
This is a fairly standard opinion amongst journalist and I am confident in presenting it to aforementioned complainers. However, if we have made an error in the story, such as spelling a name wrong or attributing the wrong age to someone, it completely undermines the argument. Simple mistakes such as that call into question all the other facts in the article and are indefensible.
Now I'm not saying mistakes won't happen, and I would prefer if you didn't go rifling through all your copies of the Observer (or even this blog) with a red marker pen and a dictionary, but it is our job to make sure they happen as infrequently as possible. Spell checks are a start, but nothing can properly replace taking time to thoroughly go over copy and make sure you're happy with what you've written.
One final thought, I've read and reread this entry and checked the spelling on every word I'm unsure of, but irony being what it is I'm sure there's a mistake in here somewhere. So congratulations to whoever spots it, but you're not getting a prize!