# Accuracy Checklist for Journalists #
Instructions
- After completing your story, use the down arrow on your keyboard or tap on each item on your phone to highlight and then complete each of these checks.
I. Facts
- Check these first three items while your story is on the screen:
- 1. Run spell-check, review suggestions and correct any actual errors.
- 2. Click links.
- 3. Call phone numbers.
- Use a printout of the story (if possible) for the remaining checks:
- 4. Put a ruler under each line as you read the text. Underline every fact, and then double-check each one, including:
- a) Names and titles of people, places and companies - Also, does each second reference (Jones) have a first reference (Mary Jones)?
- b) Numbers and calculations - Do the numbers add up? Is it millions or billions? Are the percentages correct?
- c) Dates and ages - Watch references to “next month/last month” when the month is changing.
- d) Quotes - Are quotes accurate and properly attributed? Have you fully captured what each person meant?
- e) Superlatives - What’s your source that something is the biggest, oldest, etc.?
II. Grammar
- 5. Check each sentence for correct use of:
- a) Subject-verb agreement - Also, are you consistent in your use of either the present or the past tense to tell the story?
- b) Pronoun-noun agreement.
- c) Plurals and possessives.
- d) Punctuation.
III. Spelling
- 6. Read the story backwards, checking the spelling of each word. Here's a dictionary.
IV. Fairness and context
- 7. Terms - Define or eliminate unfamiliar terms, such as acronyms and jargon.
- 8. Fairness - Have all stakeholders been contacted and given a chance to talk?
- 9. Missing - Does the story leave any important question unanswered?
- 10. Context - Does the reader have the context to understand the story?
V. Your own common errors
- 11. ____________________________________________
- 12.____________________________________________
VI. Final checks
- 13. Read the story aloud.
- 14. Have someone else read it.
- 15. Accompanying elements - Run the previous checks on the story's headlines, cutlines, sidebars, photos, graphics, videos and podcasts. Check for inconsistencies.
Thanks to these sources for inspiring this checklist:
- Steve Buttry's Accuracy Checklist
- Detroit Free Press Accuracy Checklist
- Daphne Gray-Grant's "Preventing goof-ups: 10 proofreading tips"
- The New York Times' "The Reader's Lament"
- San Jose Mercury News Accuracy Checklist
- Craig Silverman's Accuracy Checklist