USA Today recently ran a story citing questions being raised about Ron Suskind’s “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President,” a sometimes unflattering backstage peek into the Obama White House.

The article focused on some challenged quotes and denied allegations, all standard fare for this kind of work. But toward the end, another issue surfaced.

The article cited three factual errors: two wrong titles for White House players and a not-even-close unemployment rate for June 2009. Not earth-shakers, but goofs nonetheless.

Suskind’s response: There were no significant errors, and what he called “typos” are bound to appear in a 500-page book.Typos do indeed occur. My novel has 24 by one count, thanks to a careless proofreader (me). But wrong facts, like titles and numbers, are not “typos.” They are errors. Suskind’s wave-off is not uncommon in the business, and it shows a disturbing tolerance for imprecision.

How many errors are acceptable? I have yet to hear a formula like the one used in old laxative ads concerning the unreliability of prunes. “Are three enough, six too many?”

Perfection is never attainable, but it should be a goal, particularly in journalism. Errors should be acknowledged and regretted, not shrugged off as “stuff happens.”

To his credit, Suskind said the errors would be corrected in subsequent editions. That’s not always the case; too often, careless writers dodge the consequences of errors far more grievous than Suskind’s.

In those cases, the consequences only afflict the misinformed or maligned victims of inaccuracy.