Corrections Policy
Why we correct in public
A news site that hides its mistakes is asking readers to take everything else on trust. Riverdale Standard corrects errors openly, in the story where they occurred, with a note saying what was wrong and what is right. We do this whether the error was caught by a reader, a source, a public official or one of us, and whether it was in a story about the Clayton County budget or a story about a game console. The point is not to punish anyone; it is so that the record you rely on is accurate and so that you can see how often we get things wrong.
Three kinds of change
A correction fixes a factual error: a wrong name, number, date, place, title, vote count, quotation or attribution. It is the most serious category and always carries a note.
A clarification addresses something that was accurate but incomplete or open to misreading. A story that said a road would close without saying which lanes, or that reported a fee without saying it applies only to new applications, gets a clarification. It also carries a note.
An update adds new information to a developing story: a further statement, a vote that has now happened, a suspect who has now been named by police. Updates are marked with the time they were made. They are not corrections, because nothing in the original was wrong when it was written.
Fixing a typo or a formatting glitch that does not change meaning is not noted. If you think a change we treated as trivial altered the meaning, tell us and we will add a note.
How to tell us
Write to support@riverdalestandard.com with CORRECTION in the subject line. Include the link to the story, quote the sentence or figure you dispute, and tell us what you believe is correct and how you know. A link to or copy of the document that shows the right version shortens the process considerably. You do not need to be affected by the story to report an error in it; a reader in Morrow who noticed we put a school in the wrong district has done exactly what we want.
Complaints about tone, emphasis or headline framing that do not allege a factual error go to the same address and are treated as complaints rather than corrections. They are read by an editor who was not involved, and they get a reply.
What happens next
Correction requests are read the same day. An editor checks the claim against the source material used for the story and against whatever you have sent. If you are right, the story is corrected, a note is added, and you get a reply saying so. If we believe the story was right, we reply explaining why and pointing to the evidence, and you are welcome to come back with more. If we cannot determine the truth quickly, the disputed passage is softened or marked as disputed while we find out, rather than left standing as fact.
Simple errors are usually fixed within hours. Disputes that require records requests or callbacks can take days, and if they do we tell you where we are.
Where the note goes
The correction note appears in the story itself, near the top for serious errors and at the end for minor ones, with the date and time of the correction. The error is fixed in the body of the story; we do not leave a wrong figure standing and merely append the right one below. Where a story has been shared on social media with the wrong fact in the post, we post the correction there too. Where a wrong fact appeared in a headline, the note says so, because headlines travel further than stories.
Local stories and named people
Errors in local stories have a particular weight, because the people involved are our neighbors and the record follows them. If we have misidentified a person, misstated a charge, or attributed to a resident of Riverdale something a different person said, we correct it with urgency and we contact the person affected directly if we can. Where a story about a criminal charge is later followed by dismissal or acquittal and we are told of it, we update the original story to say so.
Requests to remove stories
We do not unpublish accurate stories because they have become inconvenient. Accurate reporting is a record, and removing it quietly falsifies the record. We will consider adding an update that reflects later developments, correcting any error, and, in rare cases involving private individuals where the public interest has faded and the harm is severe, removing a name from a story. Each such request is decided by an editor on its facts and answered in writing.
Breaking news
During a developing story, such as severe weather in the south metro, a major incident at the airport, or an unfolding public safety event, early reports change. We label developing stories as such, timestamp each update, and when an earlier detail turns out to be wrong we say so in the update rather than silently overwriting it.
The correction log
Every correction and clarification is recorded internally with the story, the error, the fix, the source of the report and the time. We review the log periodically to find patterns: a type of error that keeps recurring is a process problem, not a run of bad luck, and it gets fixed at the process level. The fact-checking policy describes several rules that exist because the log showed we needed them.
