A ccuracy is a two-way street.

During the past month, I have been asked to look into several issues involving reporting accuracy in The Spokesman-Review. What I have most often discovered is that the reader has either misread or misunderstood the context of the article. Because of this, the readers actually gave me inaccurate or incomplete information to check.

That is fine as long as we can get it straightened out. After all, that is a major part of what I do here: help you as readers understand issues plus the how and why things are done in newspapers.

But one case stands out, in part because it involves blogs, the bit of cyberspace where many people now receive much of their information. In Monday’s Community Comment blog, a banned blogger’s posting was accidentally admitted and then removed.

First, how is a banned blogger accidentally admitted? David Laird, a reader who is the blog’s co-administrator, said he found a post in a “hidden” file within the blog’s system. As for how the post made it into the hidden file, Laird called it “a great mystery.”

“I didn’t know it had been marked hidden until some of the folks in the discussion happened to comment on it,” he said. “Since, at that point, I had not remembered that (the blogger) was banned, I immediately un-hid it and wrote a message to Steve (Smith, editor of The Spokesman-Review) and the IT guys asking why it was marked hidden. We still do not know who originally marked it.”

Very shortly thereafter, he was contacted by Smith, reminded that the blogger is banned and the post was removed. Laird said he is unsure who exactly removed the post, but it was gone not long after he had recovered it and placed it in the blog.

Despite the posts criticizing Laird for removing the message and even for his apology, the fact is the blogger was banned for repeated unsubstantiated allegations against the newspaper and the Cowles family, which owns it. The banned blogger’s sense of accuracy in the situation is put off balance by an apparent agenda against the newspaper and the Cowles family. Smith is absolutely correct: If any of us would make these same allegations against anyone, it would be considered libel (if in print) or slander (if verbal). As a result, the man has been banned from the paper’s various blogs.

What is interesting in this case is that Laird took immediate action and wrote an apology to the site community, taking responsibility for restoring the post after it had been removed. Laird, his co-administrator Jeanie Buchanan and I are talking, working on communication and to prevent any future such gaffes on Community Comment.

What I admire about Laird’s and Buchanan’s actions is their rapid response in explaining what happened to their virtual community with a great deal of facts and detail one might not expect in most virtual communities. It was a fair and accurate explanation, despite criticism of Laird and The Spokesman-Review from at least two bloggers through posts on Tuesday and Wednesday in Community Comment.

That brings up the question about accuracy in blogs: When do we know if what a blogger is telling us is true or not? That’s the problem with cyberspace; accuracy may be in the mind of the blogger, but it may not be true or accurate in reality.

So what should readers do if they suspect any area (print or electronic) of The Spokesman-Review is not accurate? Smith said via e-mail that company policy is clear: We correct our mistakes as quickly as possible. Readers can contact Smith or Managing Editor Gary Graham by phone, e-mail or regular U.S. mail to complain about any inaccuracy.

“When we have verified that an error has made it into print, on the Web, etc., procedures call for us to make an immediate correction in Accuracy Watch and, sometimes, in another location,” such as the opinion page if the mistake is in an editorial, Smith said.

“Those responsible for the error fill out a tracking form that goes to Gary Graham,” he said. “The form helps us to track individuals who are making too many mistakes and also identify institutional problems that might be contributing to mistakes.”

Graham said the newspaper published 36 corrections in May, with eight situations involving misidentification, such as titles and relationships. While the May-to-May numbers show a drop (36 this year compared with 40 last year), he said the overall number of corrections is up slightly, 206 published corrections this year compared with 197 for the same time last year.

So, to paraphrase classic television: Keep those cards, letters and, now, e-mails coming in about accuracy. In addition, let’s all strive for more accuracy in our conversations with each other so we have a clear understanding of the issues at hand.