Eight Brazilian newspapers, all part of the RBS media group, are collaborating on the "Error Prevention Project," devising a so-called "accuracy packet" that will help them identify and avoid their most frequent errors.

The packet begins with a handbook made by Zero Hora editor Pedro Dias Lopes, and follows with suggestions and practices from American and Brazilian professionals.  

Primary features of the Prevention Project include:

-an online database where participating publications submit and explain each correction they have made.

-an internal awareness campaign urging employees to check for the five most frequent types of errors (53% of all errors), including names, and personal data like professions and age.

-a Manual of Procedures and Error Prevention, the title of Lopes' handbook, which offers advice on how to best write various types of articles, including obituaries.

Lopes began tracking errors in 2004, and thanks in part to the strength of the handbook, he was named executive editor of zerohora.com. After Zero Hora's correction records were put online, and the other publications in the project, such as Poineiro, followed suit. Analysis showed that the top five errors across all the papers were identical to the top five first identified at Zero Hora.

Source: Poynter