CONTEXT MATTERS What interviews with news subjects can tell us about accuracy and error

Part of a larger study about the experiences of private citizens who suddenly find themselves in the news, this paper addresses one aspect of that experience: how people feel about errors in the stories in which they were named. The study is based on in-depth interviews with 64 individuals who were named in newspaper articles in the New York area and a mid-sized city in the Southwestern United States. As in past, survey-based studies, findings indicate subjects are often quick to dismiss many inaccuracies. But it also emerges that for many subjects other aspects of the experience of being in the news matter more than the strict accuracy of the article, and that circumstances surrounding an article's publication influence error perception. The paper discusses four features common to subjects' encounters with the press that have bearing on how they interpret an article's content in general, and errors in particular: the newsworthy events themselves, subjects' objectives, subjects' expectations, and the feedback they receive from others.