No newsroom is right one hundred per cent of the time. Ours certainly is not. What separates a credible publication from a careless one is what happens after a mistake is caught.
What counts as a correction
A correction is a fix to a factual error in a published article — a wrong name, a wrong number, a wrong date, a misattributed quote, a misidentified person in a photo. Typos, headline tweaks for clarity, and minor stylistic edits are not corrections; they are just edits, and they happen without note.
What a correction looks like
When we publish a correction, we add a note at the top or bottom of the affected article explaining what was wrong and what the correct version is. The original publication date stays. Where the error sat in a headline, the headline is changed and the note explains the change. We do not “stealth-edit” stories to make ourselves look better.
Clarifications
Some changes are not strictly factual corrections but make a story clearer or fairer. A clarification might be added when our wording could be read in a way we did not intend, when context is missing, or when a subject has supplied additional information that improves the record. Clarifications are flagged the same way corrections are.
Retractions
In rare cases where a story is so badly wrong that updating it is not enough, we retract it. The story is taken down, a retraction note replaces it explaining what happened, and the URL is preserved so that no one can quietly pretend the story never existed.
How fast we act
When a credible factual error is reported to us, we aim to respond within one working day. Substantive corrections are made the same day the error is confirmed; in news-cycle critical cases (live match reporting, transfer windows, opening-weekend box office) we act in hours, not days.
Requesting a correction
Email [email protected] with:
- The URL of the article.
- The specific sentence or claim you believe is wrong.
- What you believe the correct version is.
- Any source we can use to verify (a screenshot, a link, an attestation).
You do not need to be the person mentioned in the article to flag an error. Anyone can.
Right of reply
If you are the subject of a story and feel we have it wrong, write to the same address and tell us why. Where your account materially changes the record, we update the piece and add a note. Where we believe our reporting is right, we will say so and explain.
Questions about this page?
Email us at [email protected] and a member of the editorial team will get back to you, typically within one business day.