When editors foul things up I

If you write feature articles for publication, this may well happen to you: An article you've worked hard on is published, but now it's riddled with errors. They're not your fault, but they're under your byline!

This happened to me when I wrote about Taiwan's birds and conservation issues for a government publication in 2008. The corrected Web version article is here; the print edition and the original Web version contained four serious factual inaccuracies, all of which resulted from the editor altering what I'd written.

The most serious was that, throughout the piece, the term "endemic species" had been changed to "native species." If you know anything about ecology and biogeography, you'll know why this appalled me. (Endemic means found only in that place or country; native species are indigenous but occur naturally in other places.)

In the paragraphs about the dam, the editor changed “goes ahead” to “given the green light.” At the time of writing, the authorities had given the dam project the green light, but environmental groups were trying to have the decision overturned. Therefore, whether it would go ahead or not was still in doubt.

I'm glad to end by saying that when I pointed out these errors, the editor took full responsibility, apologized and immediately corrected the Web version of the article. 

In my next post, I'll discuss another instance when an editor made a change to one of my article that likely caused some readers to think whoever wrote it is an idiot.