REMINDER: The deadline for the 2004 APME journalism excellence contests is here! Entries should be postmarked no later than today and received at APME's office in New York by June 7. Click here to find out more.

FACT-CHECKING POLICY RAMPS UP
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram created a bold, new fact-checking policy in response to the recent scandal at USA Today and local credibility concerns. once a month, Senior Editor/Reader advocate David House will randomly select several recently published stories and, with the help of other staffers, get in touch with every source to make sure the writing is original or adequately sourced. "This sort of fact-checking is commonplace in the magazine business, where the deadlines don't come every day," Executive Editor Jim Witt wrote in an internal memo. "We can't do it for every story, obviously, but by doing a random spot check we hope to encourage everyone in our newsroom to remember and follow the standards we have and the principles we want to uphold." Read more here.

EDITORS DISCUSS HOW TO MAKE THEIR CORRECTIONS EASIER TO UNDERSTAND
"I feel our corrections sometimes lack context," Lance Johnson, managing editor of The Day in New London, Conn., wrote in an e-mail on RTTalk3, 2003 Roundtables leaders' list-serve. "Currently, we run corrections and clarifications on Page 2. We don't point out the original error, but instead simply print the corrected information." Johnson received a flurry of advice and comments. Most editors said they republish the original error if it is needed for context or are Thinking about beginning doing so. "We differentiate between a correction (when we flat out got something wrong or ran a typo) and a clarification (when we printed a fact that was somewhat unclear)," wrote Todd Dulaney, editor of the Piqua, Ohio, Daily Call. "As much as we hate making mistakes, we're going to make corrections better reading," wrote Heidi de Laubenfels, AME/Graphics, Photo & Technology, at The Seattle Times. "And we're going to change our current style to focus on the section rather than the day, since that's the way a lot of people go through the paper." Several editors noted they have occasionally republished articles or published explainer columns when there was a serious concern and a few said they print corrections on the page the errors appeared in addition to having a central corrections spot.

Today's Update was prepared by Debby Urken of the APME Credibility Roundtables project.

APME FOUNDATION SEEKS DONATIONS FOR ANNUAL AUCTION
APME's charitable partner sponsors worthy projects throughout the year, including bringing minority journalists to the annual conference and sponsoring the conference newspaper which brings together students and working professionals. The Foundation's annual auction raises money for those efforts and others. Consider donating a local gift for purchase by colleagues in Louisville. Read more here.

COOPERATION KUDOS: MEMBERS CONTRIBUTE TO AP REPORTS
AP member newspapers, broadcast stations and online sites are the local eyes and ears of the world-wide news cooperative, contributing tips, stories and photographs to improve the content available to all members. These members will receive APME Instant Citations for their assistance on recent stories: