Getting it right is at the heart of journalism. It's also not an accident; it's a process that requires you to carefully check facts not only before you write but after, so that you can ensure that errors didn't find their way into a story.
Like in this lede:
A woman was charged today for grand theft auto and defrauding $12,000 dollars from an adoption agency.
The charge was not grand theft auto. According to the text, it was grand theft, period.
It's a mistake that could have been easily caught, if you had fact-checked each and every assertion, label, title, name, date and figure.
You can't get away from doing the grunt work. Please make sure that on deadline assignments that you are building in some time to do the necessary job of checking your facts.
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