Corrections Policy

Why we correct in public

A news site that hides its mistakes asks readers to take everything else on trust. Cumbernauld Media corrects errors openly, in the story where they occurred, with a note saying what was wrong and what is right. We do this whether the error was found by a reader, a source, a press office or one of us, and whether it was in a story about an election, a satellite, a striker or a sedan. The point is not to punish anyone. It is so the record you rely on is accurate and so you can see how often we get things wrong.

Three kinds of change

A correction fixes a factual error: a wrong name, score, number, date, currency, title, quotation or attribution. It is the most serious category and always carries a note.

A clarification addresses something that was accurate but incomplete or open to misreading. A story that gave a price without saying which market it applied to, or reported a study’s finding without saying how small the sample was, gets a clarification. It also carries a note.

An update adds new information to a developing story: a further statement, a result now confirmed, a recall now formally issued, a court that has now ruled. Updates carry the time they were made. They are not corrections, because nothing in the original was wrong when it was written.

Fixing a typo or a formatting glitch that does not change meaning is not noted. If you think a change we treated as trivial altered the meaning, tell us and we will add a note.

How to tell us

Write to support@cumbernauld-media.com with CORRECTION in the subject line. Include the link to the story, quote the sentence or figure you dispute, and tell us what you believe is correct and how you know. A link to or copy of the record, ruling, paper or announcement that shows the right version shortens the process considerably. You do not need to be affected by the story to report an error in it; a reader who noticed we confused two players with the same surname, or two similarly named companies, has done exactly what we want.

Complaints about tone, emphasis or headline framing that do not allege a factual error go to the same address and are treated as complaints rather than corrections. They are read by an editor who was not involved, and they get a reply.

What happens next

Correction requests are read the same day. An editor checks the claim against the source material used for the story and against whatever you have sent. If you are right, the story is corrected, a note is added, and you get a reply saying so. If we believe the story was right, we reply explaining why and pointing to the evidence, and you are welcome to come back with more. If we cannot settle the question quickly, the disputed passage is softened or marked as disputed while we find out, rather than left standing as fact.

Simple errors are usually fixed within hours. Disputes that need an organisation’s response, a records request or a document we do not yet have can take days, and if they do we tell you where things stand.

Where the note goes

The correction note appears in the story itself, near the top for serious errors and at the end for minor ones, with the date and time of the correction. The error is fixed in the body; we do not leave a wrong figure standing and append the right one below it. Where a story was shared on social media with the wrong fact in the post, we post the correction there too. Where a wrong fact appeared in a headline, the note says so, because headlines travel further than stories.

Figures people act on

Some errors cost readers more than others because readers act on them quickly. A wrong price, a misplaced decimal, a percentage from the wrong base, a fare rule misread, a recall applied to the wrong model year, a kick-off time in the wrong time zone, a dosage or a study finding overstated: these are corrected with urgency, and the note goes at the top regardless of how small the change looks. Where a person has been misidentified, or a statement attributed to the wrong official, athlete or executive, we contact the person affected directly if we can.

Requests to remove stories

We do not unpublish accurate stories because they have become inconvenient to a company, a club, an official or a public figure. Accurate reporting is a record, and removing it quietly falsifies the record. We will consider adding an update that reflects later developments, correcting any error, and, in rare cases involving private individuals where the public interest has faded and the harm is severe, removing a name from a story. Each such request is decided by an editor on its facts and answered in writing.

Breaking news and live coverage

During a developing story, such as an election night, a major match, a launch, a natural disaster or a market shock, early reports change. We label developing stories as such, timestamp each update, and when an earlier detail turns out to be wrong we say so in the update rather than silently overwriting it. A figure heard in a press conference and later contradicted by the official record is corrected to the record.

The correction log

Every correction and clarification is recorded internally with the story, the error, the fix, the source of the report and the time. We review the log periodically to find patterns. A type of error that keeps recurring is a process problem rather than bad luck, and it gets fixed at the process level. Several rules on the fact-checking page exist because the log showed we needed them.

Last updated: September 2026