Wrong photo brings grief to Kalamazoo newsroom

Joyce Pines of the Kalamazoo Gazette explains an uncomfortable newsroom moment in a column on Correction mixup is reminder we should all be treated with dignity.

"It began Tuesday morning with an angry mother claiming we ran a photo of her deceased daughter in Monday's newspaper."

Yet Pines, the news organization's public editor, could find no photo caption with that name. She learned the photo, provided by the police department, was in a column that is about individuals are being sought for probation violations or failure to appear at court hearings. Pines learned that the photo accompanying the item about Kawanna Earlean-Denise Nabors was her sister Terecita Smith.

Unfortunately, the correction repeated the mistake. You can learn more about how that happened and what the newsroom learned in its investigation.

At least in Flint, the recent photo mixup was buildings, not people. The story was about the US Army Reserve armory that a local college bought for $1. The photo was of the Michigan National Guard armory. This is an old postcard of an armory.

And this column: West Michigan rosary effort adds to the armor of God overseas is over on mlive.com

Over and out.