6 Fact-Checking Failures Small Businesses Make Before Publishing
A checklist of the fact errors that damage credibility fastest in published business content
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Fact-checking is not something most small business owners build into their editing process. It feels like a step for large newsrooms. In practice, a single factual error in a published piece can follow a business for years — especially when that piece lives on a news information portal with a permanent URL.
The Errors That Appear Most Frequently
- Statistics without a source date. A figure from four years ago presented as current is misleading, even if unintentionally so.
- Competitor names spelled incorrectly. This is embarrassing and suggests the piece was not reviewed carefully.
- Job titles that have changed. Calling someone a director when they are now a managing partner is a fact error, not a style choice.
- Quotes attributed to the wrong person. This happens when editing moves paragraphs around without checking attribution.
- Product names with incorrect capitalisation. Brand names are legally specific. Getting them wrong signals carelessness to the very companies you may want to impress.
- Dates that do not align. If the article says an event happened in March but a quote mentions spring preparations in February, someone needs to reconcile that before publication.
A basic fact-check checklist — names, dates, titles, statistics, brand spellings — takes under fifteen minutes and prevents the kind of corrections that damage trust with editors and readers alike.