It's a reporter's greatest fear. He has been working for a month on a major investigative piece, part of the biggest ongoing local news story of the year. It runs as the lead story on the Sunday front page. And the key fact that begins the article is wrong.

News & Observer investigative reporter Joseph Neff didn't sleep at all last Sunday night, after he learned of the error in his article headlined, "Duke lacrosse files show gaps in DA's case." The opening paragraphs of the story said Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong had proceeded with rape indictments against two lacrosse players the same day he asked a police investigator to look into whether the accuser's injuries might have had causes other than the alleged rape.

That information was wrong. Nifong actually had asked investigator Michele Soucie for background information about the accuser on April 4, nearly two weeks before the indictments, not on April 17, as the story said. The N&O ran a front-page correction Tuesday that said, in part, "This error changes the implications of the first five paragraphs of the story: that the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and investigators outpacing the facts in the file."

In the story, Neff set forth numerous other examples of a shaky prosecution case, but the erroneous information, coming at the top of the story, was Exhibit A. The story was accompanied on the front page by a reproduction of Soucie's notes, labeled "Excerpts from Soucie's notes on April 17."

"I'm not aware of an error like this in a story like this in my 20 years on the job," said Deputy Managing Editor Steve Riley, who as the editor who handled the story took responsibility with Neff for the mistake. "Certainly, it's the most significant error that I've had a part in."

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HERE'S HOW THE ERROR OCCURRED, according to Neff and Riley: Neff had obtained copies of Soucie's hand-written notes on the investigation, which are part of some 1,800 pages of documents supplied by the DA to defense attorneys (but not all made public).

On one page, Soucie wrote that Nifong instructed her "to nail down what victim did on the day before arriving at 610 N. Buchanan so we can show that she did not receive trauma prior to incident." On that page was the circled date, 4/17/06. Neff took that to mean the date she talked to Nifong. But elsewhere in the notes, Soucie had written 4/4/06, the correct date, and Neff missed that notation.

"He misread the document. I didn't challenge him on the document, and therefore it went into the newspaper," Riley said.

Before publication, Neff did try to reach Soucie by phone and twice went to Nifong's office in Durham seeking comment. Neither responded. The prosecution and defense are under a judge's orders not to talk about the case. (I tried to reach Nifong last week, without response.)

Neff learned of his error Sunday night (the sleepless one), double-checked Monday, informed his editors and with them crafted a correction that went onto The N&O's Web site Monday and onto the front page of Tuesday's paper.

From a reader standpoint, several questions arise. Could the error have been prevented? What does it say about The N&O's fact-checking system? And, most important, what is the effect on the paper and its credibility with readers?

Or, as reader Chris McLaughlin of Durham put it: "In this particular case, the lead of the story -- the real hook to draw in readers -- was based on incorrect dates. Without such a lead, the story is much less effective. Was there extra attention paid to this article? Should there have been?"

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