Corrections Policy
We get things wrong. Rarely on the big claims, because those get checked twice, but a wrong initial, a misread column in a set of accounts, a figure that was right in the filing and wrong by the time it reached the headline. This page says what happens next.
The one rule underneath everything else: the fix goes on the story where the error was, visibly, with a date. Nothing here gets quietly edited in the hope that nobody kept the tab open.
Correction, clarification, update
A correction means we published something factually wrong. A name, a number, a date, a job title, who said what, what a document actually says. The article is fixed and a note at the foot says what was wrong and what it says now.
A clarification means the facts were right and the wording let a reader draw a conclusion we did not intend, usually through missing context. We rewrite the passage and note what we made clearer. An update is neither of those. It is a story that has moved on, a charge dropped or a figure revised by the body that issued it, and the new information is added with the date it arrived. Calling an update a correction would let us dodge the ones that are our fault, so the three labels stay apart.
The note lives on the story
Corrections are made in the original article at the original address, and the note stays there permanently. It gives the date of the fix, what the piece said before, and what it says now. On a substantial error the note goes at the top where nobody can miss it, and the headline changes too when the headline was the problem.
Wording is never removed without a line saying it existed, because a reader who saw the first version deserves to know it changed. Where a story has been corrected twice, both notes stay, in order. It looks untidy. That is the correct amount of untidy.
Typos, and things that are not typos
A misplaced comma, a broken link, a duplicated word, a picture that failed to load: we fix those and say nothing, because a note about a stray apostrophe helps no one and buries the notes that matter.
Everything touching a fact gets a note, even when the error is small and almost nobody would have noticed. If the change alters what a reasonable reader would take away from the story, it is material, and on a material error the person or company affected is told directly rather than left to find the fix. When we cannot decide which side of the line something sits on, we publish the note. That has never made us look worse than the alternative.
Telling us about an error
Write to support@blueholemen.com with CORRECTION at the front of the subject line. There is no form, and the mail goes to editors rather than a support desk. Paste the link, quote the sentence you are challenging, say what the accurate version is, and attach or cite the document if you have it. That turns a disagreement into a five-minute check.
We aim to answer the same working day and to fix a confirmed factual error within twenty-four hours. Some take longer, usually because the source we need to re-check is a public body that answers when it feels like it, and we say so rather than going silent. If we conclude the story was right, you get the reasoning and the source rather than a form reply. Our contact page covers everything else arriving in the same inbox.
The copies that already left
Fixing the article is not the end of it, because by then the wrong version has been sent out in places we do not control from the page. Where we posted the story to a social account, the post is corrected or replaced and the error is stated in plain words rather than deleted and reposted as though the first attempt never happened.
Newsletters cannot be recalled, so a correction to anything mailed out runs at the top of the next send. Where another publication licensed the story, we tell them what changed, ask them to carry the correction and log whether they did. Anyone who republished us without asking is harder to reach, though we try when the error is material.
We correct rather than delete
Stories are not unpublished because a subject dislikes them, because a company sent a letter, or because a story turned out to be embarrassing to us. If reporting was wrong, the remedy is a corrected story with the error on the record. Removing it would hide both the mistake and the fix.
Two narrow exceptions exist and we will name them. A legal order requires removal, or leaving the piece up would put an identifiable person in real danger, usually a source exposed by events after publication. The article then comes down, a note stays at the address saying it was removed and broadly why, and the decision belongs to the managing editor rather than whoever is being shouted at that day.
Who decides, and what we keep
The editor who cleared the story makes the first call on a reported error, and the managing editor signs off on anything material, on any front-page or headline change, and on every removal. Corrections about our own conduct go to the editor with no involvement in the piece. Nobody corrects their own work unwitnessed, including the founding editors.
Significant corrections are logged with the date, the story, what was wrong and how it happened, and we read the log back every few months looking for the pattern. Ours is usually the same one: a number copied late from our own earlier story instead of from the source. That is why the first job each morning is reading yesterday’s pieces cold with the reader mail open beside them. The rules this policy enforces are on our editorial standards page, and the checks meant to catch errors before you see them are on our fact-checking page.
Last updated: August 2026
