Corrections Notice Generator — Typo to Significant Misrepresentation
Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code requires significant inaccuracies to be corrected promptly and with due prominence. What “due prominence” looks like depends entirely on how serious the error was, and a one-line update note attached to a substantive factual error is itself a further failure.
Last reviewed: Next review due:
Corrections Generator
Generate a corrections notice formatted for your CMS. For our full corrections policy, see the corrections page.
Information only — not legal advice. Publishing a correction does not automatically discharge a legal liability. Seek legal advice for significant misrepresentation complaints. See full disclaimer.
Factual — minor
How it works
- You enter the article title, an optional URL, the original publication date, the correction date, a severity tier, and — for anything above a typo — the original incorrect claim and the corrected position.
- Four templates are produced according to severity. “Typo only” gives a single dated line. “Factual — minor” gives a one-paragraph notice contrasting what was stated with the correct position and the update date.
- “Factual — substantive” produces a headed CORRECTION block with the original publication date and URL, the original statement and the correction set out separately, and an apology.
- “Significant misrepresentation” produces the fullest form: the article title and first-publication date, what was originally published, the correct position, an unreserved apology for the error and any harm caused, and a pointer to the corrections policy and complaints route.
- The result is plain text sized for pasting into a CMS. The “Date of correction” field now prefills with today’s date as soon as the page loads client-side — you can still edit it — and the misrepresentation template no longer hard-codes a link to this site’s own corrections page; it now ends with a generic “[your corrections page URL]” placeholder for you to fill in.
When to use it
- As soon as an error is confirmed, when the pressure is to fix the text quietly and move on.
- When a complainant has written in and you need a notice that will stand up if the complaint goes to IPSO or IMPRESS.
- To force the severity question to be answered explicitly, rather than defaulting every error to the mildest available wording.
- When building a corrections log, so that entries are consistently structured and dated.
- When a correction has to be agreed with a lawyer and you want a draft to negotiate from.
What it does not do
- Not legal advice. Publishing a correction does not discharge a legal liability, and for a defamation claim the wording, prominence and timing of any correction or apology are matters to take advice on before you publish, not after.
- It cannot assess severity for you. The tier you pick determines the entire output, and the most common corrections failure is an error being classified a tier too low.
- It says nothing about prominence, which is what regulators actually adjudicate on — where the notice sits on the page, whether it appears in the same place as the original, and whether it was also issued on the platforms the original was pushed to.
- The misrepresentation template now ends with a “[your corrections page URL]” placeholder instead of pointing at this site’s own corrections page — but nothing fills that placeholder in for you, so a notice copied out unedited will still read oddly if you forget to swap in your own publication’s URL.
- It does not cover the separate obligations of a right to reply, an adjudication ordered by a regulator, an apology negotiated in settlement, or the removal-versus-annotation decision on the original article.
More tools
This is one of the free tools on UK JournoHub. See the full tools index for the rest.