I've been reading 'Australian-built aircraft and the industry' by Keith Meggs. In Vol 1 book 1 page 225 he says
"Such journalistic rubbish by people with no interest or background in aviation research does a deal of disservice to the work of true historian, to which such journalists never refer, and those that seek the truth in later years. Justification and apologise here is no excuse for such gross inaccuracy, and editorial justifications and apologies (as to 'incorrect dates') are of only use to those researchers, in fifty or so years, who happen to see that particular issue and correction. Unqualified journalists trying to write history, without the depth of knowledge and awareness to do justice to it, are a blot on our society and on all aspects of media presentation. Their equivalent would a restaurant having the waiter or the doorman prepare an epicurean dinner for its customers." Nice .. could leave out the the 'unqualified'!
As you can see, feelings can run quite high on this subject. And my quotation probably contains errors
! I've come across a number of places where he mentions errors and then states what happened sometimes with the justification/evidence.
I have at least 3 'errors' in press reports of my fathers history. Two of those can be explained by the need not to 'alarm the public' during WW2. The other I have a hand written note by someone who was there and appears in the press report, it states that the correct position was explained to the press and yet they chose to present a lie, no war at the time either.
So my practice is if (when) I come across an error (lie) - I cannot ignore it as that would alow it to be presented as truth, present it and then refute it preferably with evidence and more than one source if possible.
Any advice on how to deal with errors ? In some cases there is no way to correct the error, nor should there be - it is history but not the truth.