Accuracy Checklist: San Jose Mercury News

David Yarnold, the executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News, developed this accuracy checklist. As they move through the stories, editors have to answer the following questions among others:

1. Is the lead of the story sufficiently supported?
   
   
2. Has someone double-checked, called or visited all the phone numbers, addresses, or Web addresses in the story? What about the names and titles?
   
   
3. Is the background material required to understand the story complete?
   
   
4. Are all the stakeholders in the story identified and have representatives from that side been contacted and given a choice to talk?
   
   
5. Does the story pick sides or make subtle value judgments? Will some people like this story more than they should?
   
   
6. Is something missing?
   
   
7. Are all the quotes accurate and properly attributed, and do they capture what the person really meant?

The checklist, which Yarnold printed and some editors posted on their computers, began as an experiment. Yarnold gave one team of thirty reporters and editors a checklist to use in producing stories and another team worked without a checklist. The group was able to follow the checklist about 80 percent of the time and required 20 percent fewer corrections that the group without it.