Corrections Policy

Correction, clarification, update

Three different things, and we say which one we are doing. A correction fixes something we got factually wrong: a wrong district in an alert list, a misspelled panchayat, a quote attributed to the wrong office. A clarification means the facts were right and the writing still let a reader walk away with something untrue, usually through a missing qualifier or a headline that outran the story. An update adds new information to a story that was accurate when it published, which in a monsoon week happens a dozen times in a day.

The labels are not cosmetic. Calling a correction an update is the oldest move on a news website, and we do not use it. If the first version was wrong, the note uses that word.

The note goes on the story, and the story stays put

Corrections are made on the original article at the original address. The note is dated, says what was wrong and what the fact is, and does not need hunting for: at the top where the error was material, at the foot where it was small. We do not quietly edit a sentence and let the page stand as though it had always read that way.

Two things get fixed without a note: a typing slip that changes no meaning, and formatting, tags or a broken link. Everything above that line carries a note. Where the error was in the headline rather than the story, the note says so, because the headline is the part that travelled.

What jumps the queue

Errors in an alert list, a reservoir or shutter level, a casualty figure, an evacuation instruction or a collector’s holiday declaration are handled the moment we can confirm the right version, ahead of everything else on the desk. Those are the numbers people act on. A wrong red-alert district does not stay on the page. It turns into a family loading a vehicle at two in the morning for nothing.

Next come errors that damage a person: a wrong name attached to an arrest, a wrong number about a company, a wrong account of what somebody said. Those are fixed the same working day, and the person affected is told the note is up rather than left to find it. Ordinary spelling, date and arithmetic errors are done in the normal run of the day.

Telling us we got it wrong, and what you hear back

Write to support@keralanews247.com with CORRECTION at the front of the subject line. Give us the link, the sentence you are disputing, what you believe the fact is, and where that comes from if you have it: the bulletin and its hour, the order, the page of the report. You do not need to be polite or explain who you are.

The most useful mail is the flattest. “Your story says the alert covers Kannur, the four o’clock bulletin does not list Kannur” gets acted on inside the hour.

You get an answer either way. If we change the story we tell you what the note says. If we do not, we tell you why, and sometimes the reason is that the dispute is about framing rather than fact. Safety errors are settled in minutes. Everything else we aim to close the same working day and, at the outside, within two.

Chasing the error past our own page

A wrong number does not stay on the page where it was born. When we correct something that has already travelled, the social post carrying it is corrected or taken down with an explanation rather than left up with the old figure. A newsletter that carried the error runs the correction in the next edition. Where a story has been syndicated or pulled into an app, we send the corrected copy and ask for the update, and since we cannot compel anybody we say what we asked for and what is out of our hands.

Then there is the forwarded screenshot, which is beyond reach entirely. A cropped image of a headline with the wrong district in it circulates for years, and no correction catches up with it. That is the honest reason this newsroom will not publish an unverified figure quickly. The correction is ours to make. The forward is nobody’s to recall.

We do not delete stories

Articles get corrected and updated, not removed. The address stays live, because deleting a page is a tidy way to lose an error along with the evidence of having made it. Requests to unpublish accurate coverage are refused, including from advertisers, whose standing on this is spelled out on our advertise page.

The exceptions are narrow. A binding legal order. A real risk to somebody’s safety, most often a source, a survivor of a sexual offence, or a child who should never have been identifiable. Material published in error, such as a draft. Where a page comes down for one of those reasons, a short note stays at the same address saying the story was removed and giving the category of reason.

Who signs off, and where the log lives

Our managing editor owns corrections and decides whether a note is a correction or a clarification, where it sits, and how it is worded. The editor who wrote or handled the story does not make that call about their own work. Significant corrections are logged, and we go back through the log when the same species of error appears twice, because a repeated mistake is a process problem rather than one careless afternoon.

The note we published about our own red-alert error in our first monsoon is still up, and we have never been tempted to take it down. The story behind it is on our about page, and how claims get tested before publication is in our fact-checking policy.

If you have found an error, do not wait to see whether somebody else reports it. Send the link and the sentence to support@keralanews247.com.

Last updated: August 2026