Rejoinder and Errata

Rejoinder went first, because her duty comes first in time. "Before you print a word about someone," she said, "you go to them and let them answer. This is the right of reply — audi alteram partem, hear the other side. Every person your story names or accuses gets a real, meaningful, pre-publication chance to respond, and their answer goes in near the claim." She lifted the second notebook. "The shopkeeper accused of cheating? I asked her — and it turned out to be a mix-up over a confusing sign, with a refund she'd offered and the customer refused. Asking first is how you get it right the first time, before the wrong version is out in the world doing harm. Because once a false story flies, no correction ever fully catches it. The before is your best and cheapest protection — for the reader, and for the person in the story."

Then Errata leaned in, skin flushing clear, because no reporter gets the before right every single time. "And when one slips through anyway — a wrong name, a wrong number, an accusation that didn't hold — my duty begins. You fix it after: out loud, up front, fast, at the same prominence as the error, with an apology if it caused harm." She stamped a page CORRECTION. "Here's what matters, though, and it's the thing people get wrong: my after does not excuse a skipped before. You don't get to run an unchecked, one-sided story and shrug that you'll 'correct it if someone complains.' That's using the correction as a license to be careless — and it isn't fair to the person who was harmed in between." She settled her color. "And Rejoinder's before doesn't excuse a buried after, either. Ask first and fix honestly. Both, or you've only done half the job."

A student who worked between the two desks said the thing they'd been waiting for: "So it's not enough to ask the other side, and it's not enough to run corrections. You have to do both — the asking before, and the fixing after."

"That," said Rejoinder, "is the whole of it."

"Fairness isn't a moment," said Errata. "It's a posture you hold toward the people in your story from before you publish to long after. The before is Rejoinder: get it right by asking. The after is me: make it right by owning up. Skip the before and you harm someone you never had to. Skip the after and you leave a harm standing that you could have healed. A paper people trust does both, every time — and that trust is the only thing that makes the reader believe a word you print."