On Aug. 6, a story detailing two outcomes for the Indian River County District 2 School Board race was inadvertently published on TCPalm, 11 days before the Aug. 18 primary.
A journalist inadvertently clicked publish instead of save in our content system, sending the draft online immediately.
It is common practice for news organizations to write several outcomes for a race in advance of the election so that the outcome can be published immediately once results are known. These story shells are called “pre-writes.”
The story featured a generic placeholder headline and a secondary headline that detailed who was in the race. Two versions of the story were published together: one showing candidate A winning, and the other showing candidate B winning. The story also included general information about the race.
Editors unpublished the story as soon as the mistake was discovered.
“We’ve launched a full review of our publishing workflow and are implementing safeguards to prevent this in the future,” TCPalm Executive Editor Adam Neal said. “We regret the error and any confusion it caused.”
The primary election is Aug. 18. For details about local elections, visit our landing page.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: How story prematurely claiming results of school board election was published
Reporting by Staff report, Treasure Coast Newspapers / Treasure Coast Newspapers
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Staff report, Treasure Coast Newspapers | USA TODAY Network
