A short public rule for fixing errors makes a one-person publication easier to trust and to cite. Here's a copy-ready template, a change-type table and a worked correction note.
The number was wrong, and the issue already went out
Here's a hypothetical. Your Tuesday issue said a bill had 41 cosponsors. A reader replies before lunch: it's 14. You pull up the bill's Congress.gov record and the reader is right. Two digits, transposed.
The email can't be unsent. The web copy can be fixed in ten seconds, and the quiet edit is tempting: change the archive, thank the reader privately, hope nobody kept the original line.
In the moment, the silent edit feels harmless. It's also the call you'd probably make differently on a calm Sunday with nothing at stake.
Decide cold, correct warm
A corrections policy is a decision you make before you need it. We call it deciding cold. You write down, in advance and in public, what counts as a correction, where the note goes, how the original wording is marked and how fast you'll respond. Then, when you're embarrassed and in a hurry, you don't decide anything. You follow the rule.
For a one-person publication this matters more than it does in a newsroom. A newsroom has an editor down the hall who'll push back on a quiet fix. You have yourself, late at night, hoping it blows over.
The policy works outward too. A reader, another writer or someone's assistant deciding whether to cite you can read the rule and check your archive against it. Dated notes, fixed in the open with the original claim still on the record, are the evidence a careful citer looks for.
Why the quiet fix backfires
The case for the quiet edit is simple: a correction note advertises a mistake, and a small publication can't afford to look careless.
But a silent edit erases nothing. The original email still sits in every subscriber's inbox. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine may have captured the page. Someone may have quoted the line in their own post. When a reader spots the gap between what they received and what the archive now says, a transposed digit becomes a question about honesty, and that's much harder to repair than a number.
The case does hold for trivial changes. A note on every typo is clutter, and readers learn to skim past it. So the policy should say so plainly: spelling, broken links and formatting get fixed without a note, and anything that changes a fact gets one. Drawing that line in advance is half the value of writing a policy at all, because the line is exactly what you'd fudge under pressure.
What newsrooms already put in writing
Newsrooms publish their correction rules, and the public versions are short enough to borrow from.
The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, in its section on being accountable and transparent, says journalists should "Acknowledge mistakes. Correct them promptly and prominently. Explain corrections and clarifications carefully and clearly." NPR's accountability principle sets a plain standard, "Errors of fact do not stand uncorrected," and adds that "As a rule, we don't make 'silent' corrections to our stories." The Guardian has a readers' editor whose job is to handle readers' complaints "from a position of independence within the paper," and it says its policy "is to correct significant errors as soon as possible." And The Trust Project's indicators include this question for readers to ask of any news site: "Do they correct errors quickly, clearly and prominently?"
Read them side by side and the same parts keep showing up: a definition of what counts as an error, a distinction between corrections and other changes, a rule for where the fix appears and a way for readers to report problems. None of it needs staff, and all of it fits on one page.
Five kinds of change, and which ones get a note
Most of the work in a policy is sorting changes. This table is our recommendation for a one-person publication; adjust the labels, then keep them consistent.
| Change | What it covers | Note? | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typo fix | Spelling, grammar, a broken link or formatting, with the meaning unchanged | No | None |
| Correction | A wrong fact: a name, number, date, quote or attribution | Yes, dated, saying what was wrong and what's right | Correction, [date] |
| Clarification | Accurate wording that could mislead, or missing context a reader needed | Yes, dated | Clarification, [date] |
| Update | New information that arrived after publication | Yes, dated | Update, [date] |
| Retraction | The central claim of the piece doesn't hold up | Yes, at the top; the piece stays up | Retraction, [date] |
A copy-ready template and one worked correction
Paste this into your About page or a standalone corrections page, fill in the brackets and link it from your footer and your welcome email.
Corrections policy
We correct errors of fact in [publication name]. That covers names, numbers, dates, quotes and who said what.
When we fix one, we add a dated note to the post saying what was wrong and what is right. If the error went out by email, we also run the correction at the top of the next issue.
We fix typos, broken links and formatting without a note, as long as the meaning doesn't change.
We label other changes too: a clarification when accurate wording could mislead, an update when new information arrives, and a retraction when a piece's central claim doesn't hold up. We don't delete retracted pieces.
To report an error, reply to any issue or email [address]. We reply within [two business days].
Last updated [date].
Now the worked note. It's illustrative, written for this guide, and refers to no real post. Say a post claimed a bill had 41 cosponsors, and the bill's Congress.gov record showed 14:
Correction, [date]: An earlier version of this post said the bill had 41 cosponsors. It had 14 at the time of writing, per the bill's Congress.gov record. The paragraph on bipartisan support has been revised to match.
Three things make that note work. It names the wrong claim and the right one, so nobody has to compare two versions. It points at the primary record, so the reader can check the fix instead of taking it on faith. And it says which conclusion moved, which is the part readers care about. (Cosponsor counts change as members sign on, which is why the note says "at the time of writing." Our Congress.gov guide covers reading those records.)
What changes when the rule is public
Start with your own behavior. With the rule written down, the reply to the reader who caught the error is fast and boring: thanks, fixed, note added, here's the link. Boring is the goal.
The newsletter problem gets handled too. Emails can't be edited after they send, so the policy says where material corrections go: the top of the next issue, plus the web copy. Subscribers who only read in their inbox still see the fix.
If an assistant helps you draft or update posts, give it the rule in a form it can check. "Any change to a name, number, date, quote or source attribution requires a dated correction note" is checkable. "Use good judgment" isn't. Keep the rule in your standing file, next to your sources, so every draft starts from it.
Keep the source next to the claim
Most corrections trace back to one moment: a number copied from a record, with the record left behind. Fixing it later means reconstructing where it came from.
So record the source link when you write the claim. If you follow your field with Niche's briefing, each story arrives with its supporting sources attached, so the link a correction note needs is already in your inbox. That helps you get back to the record quickly. Checking your own copy against it is still your job.
No policy prevents every error. What it controls is how fast you fix one and how openly.
Frequently asked questions
How do I write a corrections policy for my newsletter?
Cover four things: what counts as a correction (wrong names, numbers, dates, quotes, attributions), how it's marked (a dated note saying what was wrong and what's right), where it appears (the post, plus the top of the next issue for email) and how readers report errors and how fast you reply. The template in this guide covers all four in about 130 words.
What's the difference between a correction, a clarification and an update?
In the scheme this guide recommends, a correction fixes a wrong fact, a clarification fixes accurate wording that could mislead, and an update adds information that arrived after publication. Each gets its own dated label so readers know which kind of change happened.
Can I correct a newsletter after it's been sent?
You can't edit the email itself. Fix the web copy with a dated note, and run material corrections at the top of your next issue so inbox-only readers see them.
Do typos need a correction note?
Not under this template. Spelling, grammar, broken links and formatting can be fixed without a note as long as the meaning doesn't change. Say so in the policy so the line between a typo and a factual error is drawn in advance.