Once upon a time, and still from time to time, I poke fun at typos, errors, or omissions in various forms of media including newspapers, news articles, and blog posts. Having come to a point where I write my own blog, I see how fast the typos can pile up. When I wrote primarily on my PC and made specific time to write, my posts were generally very clean. Now that I’m hooked up on mobile and find myself writing any time I have time, I see that mistakes are quite common. Periods go missing, commas get misplaced, text gets accidentally deleted, header scripts get added to paragraph text.

I need to ask a favor of every reader now that the blog is approaching a good 400 views a month or more: Let me know when I have made a mistake. Laugh about it. Post jokes publicly or privately. Do what you have to do to make yourself feel better, but let me know that there’s an error so that it can be fixed.

In return, I do and will continue to practice what I preach and gently let publications know when there are errors. I will do my best to read all criticisms and correct things I feel warrant correction. The rationale here is simple: We may disagree with each other’s views or philosophy, but it is intellectually dishonest to point at a spelling/grammar mistake and say that makes someone less of a reporter, writer, or truth teller. We protect the collective record, so to speak, when we speak up and let each other know there’s a mistake or a goof.

There’s a time and place for castigation of people who needlessly and carelessly make mistakes. For everyone else, there’s a road to improvement and a way forward, and it reflects positively on every reporter when we encourage others to do better.