Strat18

An article in the Alligator that ran on Feb. 28 about the Regional Science Bowl originally said that 17 high schools competed. A clarification ran the next day that said 17 high school teams competed.
This mistake is found in the second graph, and I think it could've been avoided in several different ways. The reporter could have gone a step further and asked for the list of teams and high schools competing. This would've clarified the number in the story. Also, her editor and the copy editors could've asked to have the number double- and triple-checked, since numbers, like name spellings, are always details that can easily get mistaken. Knowing where that information came from would definitely confirm this details as well. The first question "Think Like an Editor" says to ask is "Says who?" about everything in the story. Answering this question would've allowed for the error to be caught before publication. I would hope that had I used the skeptical editing method while editing this story, I would've caught the error.