The Middletown Press on Tuesday announced its new Fact Check initiative, where readers can easily report mistakes they see in the paper or on our website. So far, we have gotten several notices from readers about potential errors or things that require further investigation.

One reader pointed out that a headline about the Middlefield budget on Wednesday, June 2, left out the word “million,” therefore saying Middlefield’s budget was only $3.82. An error our editors missed, but we were easily able to correct this mistake after it was brought to our attention.

Another reader said that Middletown High School has had at least five reported incidents of bullying, but the school district told our reporter there have been only two incidents, which we published in a recent story. We are bringing this issue back to the school officials to see if they can explain the discrepancy.

We have gotten some negative feedback on this feature from readers who think we are asking them to do our job for them. The Fact Check initiative does not mean the staff at The Middletown Press will stop fact checking and proof reading stories. But we all know that mistakes happen, and members of the community will know about things that we do not. We do run corrections on a regular basis, now we are making it easier than ever for readers to let us know what we did wrong or what other angles to the story they think we should have covered.

Nobody is required to participate in our Fact Check initiative. However, we hope that as many of you as possible are willing to tell us what we are doing wrong and what we can do better, so that the final product is the best that it can be. This is an effort to improve our service to our readers.