So just how accurate are stories in the paper? As in so many other parts of life, it depends.

It depends on how detailed you want to be in your assessment. The smaller the details, the greater the chance that something has gone wrong.

In a letter, a reader recalled a news story about a police action involving his family in Albany in the summer of 2005. "It was quite the event and got a sensational but not really accurate write-up in the Democrat Herald," he wrote.

I asked him what was not really accurate about it.

"I remember," he replied by e-mail, "it said the Albany Fire Department 'contained the blaze.' In fact I put the fire out probably 10 minutes before the fire department arrived. It said the 'woman and child escaped the house unharmed.' Actually they just walked out."

I looked up the stories in our electronic database. The sheriff's office had been called to a domestic disturbance on Three Lakes Road. When they got there they found someone had set the house on fire.

We ran two stories on the incident, one on the Monday after the Saturday when it happened; and another one on Tuesday giving details we couldn't get the day before.

Our first story did say that "Albany firefighters put out the fire."

It said a woman and child were in the house when the fire was started but said nothing about them getting out - certainly nothing about escaping unharmed.

The followup the next day, after the young defendant's arraignment, reported that the woman and 6-month-old infant had "left the residence." Again, nothing about escaping unharmed. Instead, it said they were taken to the Albany hospital with minor injuries.

That second report, however, did end with a sentence that said the "fire was contained by the Tangent Fire Department."

Now, three years later, Tangent Fire Chief Stan Parker remembers that yes, his department got there first and the flames were already out. He thinks that Albany got called as well - which might explain how we made that mistake - but the call was canceled.

How do those discrepancies come about?

For these kinds of stories, mostly we work off reports and briefings by law enforcement agencies.

But often the official reports are sketchy. Sometimes they are not yet ready. Now and then they are wrong, and now and then we or the law enforcement person who briefs us has misread them.

When possible, we try to check with others involved in a major case. But often that's not possible because either they can't be reached or don't want to help.

In short, we work hard at getting the straight story the first time, but the details sometimes get mangled and take a little time to become clear - not usually three years, though.

As for a "sensational" write-up? The stories mentioned here ran on Page 2. In the rare event we have an actual sensation to report, we try to do that on A1.

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