Few things consistently keep me up at night: life after graduation, the direction of U.S. foreign policy and correction lines in my stories. 

On more than a few occasions, I’ve sent my editors Slack messages at ungodly hours about things no sane person would ever think about. ‘Cause even after I went back through my interview transcripts, made sure all quotes were properly contextualized, triple-checked spellings of names and re-worded the same sentence five times, I always think of something that jolts me awake before my head hits the pillow.

“Was it the 15th or the 50th annual lecture?”

“Did I get all the statistics right?” 

“Did that person say they were a faculty or a staff member, and did I get it right in the story?”

Sometimes, these last-minute panic attacks save me from the dreaded correction, followed by the line: The Daily regrets this error — a phrase so infamous within the organization that for a while we were selling mugs with the phrase on it.

But more often than not, it’s always the things I don’t think about that result in the correction line. 

The date was wrong.

They’re a representative of the House, not a member of Congress.

That local Bay Area animal shelter is not the Humane Society, just Humane.

To the average reader, some of these correction lines aren’t a big deal. To me, they’ve always felt like someone put a dagger through my heart then removed it and that someone was me because I’m the one who messed up. I’m the reporter whose latest article now has a correction line. I hurt my own credibility. And The Daily’s credibility. And the credibility of journalists everywhere. And the whole world saw it. 

The Daily regrets this error.

But even after every correction line, one thing remains the same: life goes on. And you’re still a reporter. And The Daily hasn’t fallen. And journalists are still doing their jobs despite low trust in media organizations. And it probably wasn’t that many people who saw you mess up. And those that did probably forgot about it within five seconds. 

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m somewhat of a perfectionist. Well, that’s kind of true. Journalists in general are obsessive about correction lines because we know the gravity that even the smallest correction line can have. One of my journalism professors used to say, “If you got one thing wrong in your article, then what else did you get wrong?” 

But the truth is, I’m also a recovering perfectionist. Like many incoming frosh, I arrived at Stanford thinking I needed to be the best at everything. I had to be perfect on paper to get in here, and I felt like I had to keep that energy going. Errors were not an option.

But at The Daily, especially in my first few years, I was anything but perfect. My first article, which was a co-byline with two more experienced reporters, had multiple correction lines. I’ve had sources yell at me over the phone post-publication. I’ve missed important details while editing articles. After all of these occasions, I panicked and thought the world was going to end. The mug that said The Daily regrets this error, though a favorite among my parents, felt like it was rubbing salt in the wound every time I saw it.

Luckily, the world never ended after any mistake I made (and my god was I dramatic for thinking it would). If anything, all of my mess-ups at The Daily only made me a better reporter. 

Next time, I was going to triple-check all the dates. 

Next time, I was going to make sure I got that person’s title right.

Next time, I would make sure to know the difference between the Humane Society and Humane. 

And if there’s anything else I’ve learned, it’s that your mess-ups, no matter how small or big they feel, do not define you for the rest of your life. There are always opportunities to bounce back. Every correction line I got gave me fuel to go back out and find another story. And I’m grateful for The Daily for providing me a space to fail, try again and learn to live with my mistakes. 

And I’m especially grateful that I have a mug to remind me that all those times I messed up in my stories, the world didn’t end.