Corrections Policy

Correction, clarification, update

These are three different things, and we say which one we are doing. A correction fixes something we got factually wrong: a wrong name, a wrong figure, a quote attributed to the wrong person, a date that is off. A clarification means the facts were right but the writing still let a reader walk away with the wrong impression, usually through a missing qualifier or a headline that ran ahead of the story. An update adds new information to a story that was accurate when it published, which on a developing story can happen many times in a day.

The labels are not decoration. Quietly relabelling a correction as an update is one of the oldest moves on a news website, and we do not make it. If the first version was wrong, the note uses the word wrong.

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

Corrections are made on the original article at its original address. The note is dated, it says what was wrong and what the correct fact is, and it is easy to find: at the top where the error was material, at the foot where it was small. We do not silently edit a sentence and leave the page looking as though it had always read that way, because that hides the fact that a reader may have acted on the wrong version.

Two kinds of change are made 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 body, the note says so, because the headline is the part that travelled furthest.

What jumps the queue

Some errors are more urgent than others because people act on them. A wrong figure in a market story, a wrong detail in a health or safety report, a wrong claim about a named person, or anything a reader might rely on to make a decision is handled ahead of everything else on the desk the moment we can confirm the right version. Those numbers and names do not sit on the page while we get to them.

Next come errors that damage a person or an organisation: a wrong allegation, a wrong association, a garbled account of what someone said. Those are fixed the same working day, and where we can, the person affected is told the note is up rather than left to find it themselves. Ordinary spelling, date and arithmetic errors are corrected in the normal run of the day.

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

Write to support@webwizard360.com with CORRECTION at the front of the subject line. Give us the link, the sentence you are disputing, what you believe the correct fact is, and where that comes from if you have it: the filing, the release, the recording, the page of the report. You do not need to be polite and you do not need to explain who you are.

The most useful message is the flattest one. A note that says your story reports a figure of one number, the official source gives a different number, and here is the link, gets acted on fast. You will 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. Urgent errors are settled quickly. 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 fact does not stay on the page where it started. 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 version. A newsletter that carried the error runs the correction in the next edition. Where a story has been syndicated or picked up elsewhere, we send the corrected copy and ask for the update, and because we cannot compel anyone, we tell you what we asked for and what is out of our hands.

Then there is the forwarded screenshot, which is beyond anyone’s reach. A cropped image of a wrong headline can circulate for years, and no correction ever catches up with it. That is the honest reason this newsroom will not rush an unverified figure onto the page. The correction is ours to make. The forward is nobody’s to recall.

We do not delete stories

Articles get corrected and updated, not quietly removed. The address stays live, because deleting a page is a tidy way to lose an error along with the evidence of ever 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 someone’s safety, most often a source or a vulnerable person 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, so the removal itself is on the record.

Who signs off, and why we keep a log

A senior editor owns corrections and decides whether a note is a correction or a clarification, where it sits, and how it is worded. The person 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 kind of error turns up twice, because a repeated mistake is a process problem rather than one bad afternoon.

How claims are tested before they are ever published is set out in our fact-checking policy, and the standards behind the whole operation are in our editorial standards. If you have found an error, do not wait to see whether someone else reports it. Send the link and the sentence to support@webwizard360.com.

Last updated: August 2026