Andrew Alexander, ombudsman for the Washington Post, reflects on how a reduction in the number of copy editors (down from around 75 to 43 in three-and-a-half years) at the title has caused a peak in errors.
“Little mistakes take a huge toll on credibility,” argues Alexander.
But as the Post this week began its shift to a centralised ‘universal desk’ – intended to streamline production operations for print, online and mobile content – will the number of errors increase or will new systems emerge to deal with them?