As many of you are now aware, The Daily Universe ran a photo caption Monday that misspelled the word “apostle” as another word that has a very different and opposite meaning. On behalf of The Daily Universe, we offer a formal apology to our readers for this mistake. This was the result of human error aided by spell check software. As soon as The Daily Universe staff and Department of Communications became aware of this error, we quickly collected the remaining papers from the racks and directed students to read the online version of the paper. The Daily Universe then reprinted the paper and redistributed a corrected version to the campus racks by early Monday afternoon.
The Communications Department and Daily Universe staff considered several options: We chose to correct the paper and reprint it because it was the best representation of our values and our assessment of the seriousness of the error. Because we believe that timely and accurate news provides a valuable function to society, and that there were many good stories in the paper, including a two-page spread that summarized the talks from General Conference, we did not want to dump the whole paper because of the mistake. At the same time, we love and cherish our faith, church and our church leaders and would not do anything to intentionally cause them harm. Therefore, we took the unprecedented effort to recall, correct, reprint and redistribute the paper. According to the collective memory of The Daily Universe staff and advisers, this has never been done for an editorial error.
We tried to be transparent about this process. We were quick to explain what happened and have been open to questions by other reporters, faculty and department administration. A story appeared on the online version of The Daily Universe the same day as the incident. This house editorial is to show we are accountable to you, our audience and fellow BYU citizens. We have been humbled by this experience and we have learned a few painful lessons.
One of the lessons we learned is that technology is not a substitute for human effort. It can aid us in many of our tasks, but it can’t replace our intelligence and accountability. Finally, we’ve learned that if you are engaged in a public activity, such as publishing a newspaper, you must be vigilant in guarding against errors. We are more committed than ever to producing the highest possible quality content for The Daily Universe.
This editorial represents the opinion of The Daily Universe editorial board. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of BYU, its administration or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Copyright Brigham Young University 7 Apr 2009
