What is in a name? Getting it right gives stories credibility

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/by any other name would smell as sweet.”
This is an often quoted line from William Shakespeare’s classic play, Romeo & Juliet. Apparently, Juliet Capulet is telling her lover Romeo Montague that to her, it does not really matter that he bears the name of their rival family, Montague”. He could have been called anything else and that wouldn’t change who he is and what attracts her to him.
In love – and perhaps in the movies, it may not really matter. In real life, names do matter because they define one’s identity so we can tell one person from another as well as your professional and social record. It is really who you are! Alan and Allan or Apolo and Apollo can never be one and the same person.
Which is why Dr Kecha D. Dauson has an issue with the way we [the media] handle names of people and places we report about. He says: “The other concern I have is misspelling, especially of names of people and places in the paper and also on TV captions. Occasionally, even the way those names are pronounced during a news-cast. You may never understand how such a person whose name is misspelt or mispronounced feels.”
Indeed getting names wrong is very annoying to the persons referred to in error (and those who know them) and quite embarrassing for the newspaper, radio or television station. Many times, readers will dismiss a story on the basis that if a journalist cannot get the name right, how can one trust that they have got the other aspects of the story right.
It is one of the basics of journalism that a reporter or editor should double-check names in the story before publication. This is taught and repeated many times over in journalism school and in newsrooms.
In the case of the reporters, they are obliged to ask a source or news subject how they spell their name or they can ask the subject to personally write the name in the reporters’ notebook. If they cannot find the person, they can use several online resources to check – with caution though, so a misspelling by another publication is not perpetuated. For radio and television, a reporter should additionally ask how the name is pronounced.
To further buttress this and other issues of accuracy, fairness and balance, Daily Monitor has an 8-Point Question reporters/editors must answer before they submit a story or flag off for printing. I reproduce it below:
Questions for reporters. Do not submit copy for editing until you have answered these questions. Please copy and paste these questions at the top of your article with your answers below each one:
1. Have you read through your story? 2. Have you checked the spelling of all proper names?
3. Have you checked all numbers and arithmetic?
4. Have you checked all quotes?
5. Do you have more than one source?
6. Have you named your sources (or told the editor why you can’t)?
7. Can you justify everything you have written from your notes?
8. Do you have documents/audio/visual recordings to back up the story?
Questions for editors. Do not submit your page to the chief sub-editor until you have answered these questions
1. Have you proof-read all the articles on the page?
2. Have you checked the spelling/grammar in the headline?
3. Have you checked the spelling/grammar in the captions?
4. Have you confirmed the by-line/author?
5. Have you accurately credited the photographs?
6. Have you checked all numbers and arithmetic?
7. Is there anything potentially defamatory on the page?
8. Have you applied appropriate utilities and design styles?
Clearly, there is no lack of tools or will to get things right in the NMG newsrooms. So why do we still get names of people and places wrong? Why do we get numbers wrong, spellings wrong? Why do we get facts wrong?
While journalists are human and may make errors, these should be minimal and must be corrected. Indeed NMG has a corrections policy in its editorial guidelines and page two has been designated for this.
The policy states: “Whenever it is recognised that an inaccurate, misleading or distorted report has been published, it should be corrected promptly. Corrections should report the correct information and not restate the error except when clarity demands. Ideally, corrections should be made in a regular format and similar position as promptly as possible after the error has been detected.”

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