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Saatchi & Saatchi and MDS staying put, Herald story leads to questions about online corrections—UPDATED

In John Drinnan’s media column last Friday, one of his topics was the rumoured move of Saatchi & Saatchi and the Media Design School’s offices to the Wynyard Quarter’s innovation precinct. That’s not happening and a correction was printed, but it is yet to appear online. 

Here’s what Drinnan originally wrote: 

Ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi is abandoning its landmark Parnell offices to move into warehouse space near the Wynyard Quarter, it is understood.

The move into what is being called an innovation precinct is expected to be announced at the end of the month.

The Media Design School in Albert St is also expected to move there.

The move makes sense for the once-dominant Saatchi, which is rebuilding from a period of account losses. It recovered by winning the ASB Bank account. ASB is also establishing itself in the area.

Meanwhile, it’s not clear what will happen to the Saatchi building at the lower end of Parnell – an area which has traditionally been a haunt for advertising agencies in Auckland. 

This story was followed by a correction in the print edition, which suggested both organisations would have offices at the new design precinct but would also operate out of their existing spaces at Parnell and Albert St. But Lydia Brewer, of Saatchi & Saatchi’s PR company Sweeney Vesty, says the correction was also incorrect. 

“Saatchi is not planning on moving any part of their offices from their Parnell location to Wynyard Quarter or elsewhere,” she says. “They have no plans to move in the foreseeable future. Similarly the Media Design School will not be moving any of their current degrees from their location on Albert Street.” 

Brewer believes the confusion arose because of an initiative that Saatchi & Saatchi and the Media Design School (which moved into its new Albert St premises last year) have been working on together that launches on Tuesday. She wouldn’t give any details as to what that initiative was and Saatchi & Saatchi chief executive Nicky Bell didn’t want to comment. 

Despite the print correction, the online story has yet to be changed yet (there’s also no obvious location on the nzherald.co.nz site to find corrections) and, given it’s a fair bet to assume a big chunk of the media column’s readers are reading it online (and given the increasing focus on bringing print and online together), that seems a bit remiss. 

We’ve put in a call to nzherald.co.nz’s editor Cathy O’Sullivan to find out about APN’s online corrections policy and we’re yet to hear back, but as an example of online transparency, The New York Times has a corrections section that collates recent print and online corrections and all corrections are marked on individual stories. 

UPDATE: O’Sullivan says: “That story should have been corrected online but wasn’t due to an oversight by the business team. Our Head of Business Liam Dann was made aware of the issue this afternoon [Friday 22 March] and the column was corrected online. It is our policy to correct content online just as we do in print. If there is a complaint or issue with content that appears online we follow it up with the author for clarification before publishing corrections.” 

And while we’re on the topic, here are the best and worst corrections of 2012 via Poynter. 

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