Errors will undermine media credibility

Many Chinese media outlets, old and new, are in the spotlight not for some praiseworthy cause, but for some unbelievable mistakes they have made in their reports. A Xinhua News Agency report on the meeting between President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama on Nov 30 on the sidelines of the just concluded Paris climate change conference ended up with a typo in its headline-using "Omaba" instead of Obama.

Although it was corrected half an hour later, the damage had already been done, as a slew of news websites, including the central government's gov.cn, reposted the original report without noticing the typo. Worse, some local newspapers carried the same mistake the next day even though they had enough time to correct it.

It is universally acknowledged that a journalist can never be too careful when it comes to the names of people and places, especially in headlines. True, Xinhua was responsible for the typo in its wire copy, but it later corrected the mistake which unfortunately went unnoticed by a host of editors. Perhaps their unflinching trust in Xinhua reports is to blame for that.