(Credit: Washington Post, screenshot)

The Washington Post has a “chronic” issue with “quality control,” the Washington Post public editor, Andy Alexander, wrote Dec. 31.  However, Alexander didn’t attribute the problems to short-staffing, but instead to the staff closely examining the paper before publication.

“There’s little doubt that reduced newsroom staffing has taken a toll on Post quality.  But many lapses have little to do with how many are working and everything to do with whether they’re paying attention.”

Alexander reported that readers have spotted numerous errors lately in the newspaper — even some in high-profile newspaper territory like the front page.  “The past few years have seen a crescendo of complaints about typos, grammatical errors and minor factual mistakes,” Alexander explained.  “In recent weeks, a string of lapses has heightened reader despair.”

Some errors have been a matter of checking the jumps for stories: for example, one day’s newspaper edition directed readers to a section of the paper not published that day.  Another serious example included the Post’s publishing day-old financial listings.