Just the facts...

Or just a joke.

A letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram puts it in perspective.

This is in response to Jim Witt's Sunday column, "Newspapers have secrets and mistakes." He says, "We've never given anyone the chance to change their quote before it was published."

I agree someone should not change their quote, but as far as accuracy of your reporters, that is a joke.

Over the years, I've been involved in about 10 articles written about various prison-related issues. All except one had errors in them. They weren't necessarily egregious errors, but names attributed wrong, slight misquotes, important info left out and misspelled names.

So it looks like accuracy takes second billing to having complete control. What would be wrong to let the article be reviewed before publishing to make sure the details are correct -- not to change the facts?

-- John Leonardson, Bedford