For a lovely example of internal New York Times gotcha politics playing out in a way that puts a low priority on readers' interests, consider the following correction from today's New York Times:
A correction in this space on Wednesday for an article on Nov. 8 about efforts by Japan and China to step back from a longstanding dispute over islands in the East China Sea omitted the source of the error — that Japan had controlled the islands since World War II. (It has held them for most years since the 1880s.) The error was made during the editing process, not by the reporter, Jane Perlez.
Does the Times really think readers care whether an error was the fault of a reporter or an editor? What matters is that the newspaper and its staff, working as a team, get the facts right. If the Times is keeping track of the blame for internal quality control or bonus purposes, that's fine, but why burden the readers with the details? I'm all for transparency, usually, but this correction is a kind of pseudo-transparency. It names the reporter who is not to blame for the error, but it doesn't name the editor who was to blame, either for the original error or for the compounding second error of failing to mention in the initial correction that it wasn't the reporter's fault. Instead we are told when the error occurred — "during the editing process" — but not who the editor was who committed it. Why not just write, "the error was made by an editor," instead of "during the editing process"?
It's generally good practice to prevent these sorts of errors by requiring the reporters to see and sign off on any editing changes, which makes all errors the responsibility of both the editor and the reporter, regardless of who was "the source of the error." It may be that in some cases with overseas reporters time differences or communications difficulties make such consultation difficult or impossible. But in most cases it is possible, and sometimes the reporter will catch an error that an editor inserted. The point is, putting out a newspaper is a collaboration between editors and reporters, whereas this correction is phrased in such a way as to suggest that it is a blame game.