Draft, review, publish, correct: how a story travels
Four steps take a story from a draft to a reader: a journalist writes, an editor checks, the story is published, and later errors are corrected.
Sources
A reader sees a finished story. Behind it there is a short chain of steps, and knowing them helps to judge what a published text can and cannot promise. The graphic with this article shows four of them: draft, review, publish and correct.
The draft is the work of a journalist, who gathers facts, speaks to sources, reads documents and writes the text. At this stage the story still belongs to its author. The newsroom does not yet stand behind it.
A second pair of eyes
Review is the step that turns a draft into a story of the whole newsroom. An editor reads the text and checks the sources: who says what, and what supports it. The editor may send the story back with questions, ask for a missing side to be heard or cut what cannot be confirmed.
Publication is a decision, not an accident. The story may go out at once or be set to appear at a chosen time. Either way, from that moment it is open to every reader, including the one who spots a mistake.
When something is wrong
No review catches everything. When an error is found after publication, the text is corrected and the correction is noted, so that a reader can see that the story has changed. A quiet edit that leaves no trace would mend the sentence but damage the trust.
The graphic is a simplified picture, not a rulebook. Newsrooms differ in size and habits, and the steps can overlap or repeat. What stays the same is the principle: a second person reads the text before the readers do, and a mistake is put right in the open.
